


Something In Me Understands

by iloveyoudie



Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Bisexual Morse, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Supporting Character Death, Developing Relationship, Driving, Episode Related, Fast Cars, Feels, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Garden Tea Parties, Injury, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Morse is a disaster, Old Married Couple, Questionable Driving, Retirement, Season/Series 06 Spoilers, This is also a Jaguar fandom, Thunderstorms, Truths and Lies, Wing Grooming, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyoudie/pseuds/iloveyoudie
Summary: Debryn’s name had been known to him before he came to Oxford. He’d never dreamed then, reading a handful of niche scientific essays and dissertations, that he may eventually come to know the man.
Relationships: Laura Hobson & Inspector Morse, Max DeBryn & Endeavour Morse, Max DeBryn & Laura Hobson, Max DeBryn/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 84
Kudos: 86





	1. 1965

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenapricot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Invisible Leaf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6701557) by [greenapricot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot/pseuds/greenapricot). 



> I've been trying to figure out how to write myself a wingfic for quite a while, struggling still to find a way to also make it fit with the canon of pri's incredible Invisible Leaf series. I didn't NEED to fit her canon, but I really wanted to. So thanks to her for the inspiration, as well as letting me spam and complain, interrogate her about lore that may or may not have existed, talk about sad shit and finally - eventually - maybe get into something that compliments what she's already done :D

_nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals_  
_the power of your intense fragility:whose texture_  
_compels me with the colour of its countries,_  
_rendering death and forever with each breathing_  
  
_(i do not know what it is about you that closes_  
_and opens;only something in me understands_  
_the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)_  
_nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands_

_\--_ somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond _\--_

e.e. cummings

* * *

The sharp, cold edge of the stone steps cut into Morse’s back as he hit the ground. He looked down to find a red stain slowly seeping through the clean white of his shirt, and like the victim in a pulp drama, he touched his fingers to it as if to test that it were real. When his fingertips came back dark and sticky with his own blood, Morse’s head began to swim. It hadn’t felt like more than a scratch at the moment of contact, nothing more than an unexpected twinge when hit by a foreign body with some measure of strength behind it. There had been a sort of pinch and then a burst of adrenaline as he leapt up from where he’d been pushed and made chase. He’d attributed the sharp stitch in his side to being in poor shape as he sprinted through the tunnels, but now it throbbed with a pulsing pain, and his haemophobia sent him spinning into an uncontrollable panic.

He'd been stabbed.

Morse became aware of his own voice yelling, crying out, and Jim Strange was there in a split second leaning over him and trying to staunch the blood with something from his pocket. He was asking him what happened - telling him it would be fine - and then saying something about the hospital.

Morse could only think of the suspect escaping.

“Where are they?” He gasped. A cold sweat had sprung out along his hairline and between his shoulder blades, and when a gust of fall wind ruffled his hair and hit the back of his neck, his entire body felt like it had suddenly been submerged in an icy river. The flush of heat from running, the hot embarrassment of crumpling to the ground and swooning from blood, clashed with the chill and sent him shuddering.

“Who?” Jim shifted his hands and gripped one of Morse’s shoulders as he tried to squirm away from the pain. He turned to wave over one of the other uniformed constables who had been on patrol, “Get to a phone. We need an ambulance!”

“No-” Morse looked down and saw the blood on his fingers again and felt bile rising up in his throat, “No ambulance.”

“Matey, you need-”

“Dr. Debryn-” Morse wasn’t sure why he’d said it. The pathologist’s name had just sprung to mind. They were nothing more to one another than work acquaintances, not even friends, but Debryn’s name had been known to him before he came to Oxford. He’d never dreamed then, reading a handful of niche scientific essays and dissertations, that he may eventually come to know the man.

“Christ, matey-” Jim continued to keep pressure on Morse’s wound, “I’m not sure he’d-”

“Please-” Morse closed his eyes and dropped his head back onto the stone stairs behind him.

“Call Dr. Debryn,” he heard Strange say, “Tell him what’s happened. Tell him I’m bringing Morse round. Look sharp!”

And in moments Morse was hauled to his feet, forced to open his eyes and move, and was herded into a police cruiser.

*

The nausea had passed by the time Jim was pulling the car up to the morgue doors. Any policeman who’d had to visit the morgue more than once for a report knew to use the ambulance entrance. No one had the time to wander the hospital's labyrinthine corridors when an impatient DI or Superintendent was breathing down their neck for lab results. Not when doctors like Debryn insisted they show up in person.

“Usually this entrance is reserved for corpses,” came the clipped tones of the doctor as the car door swung open. He was stiff and formal and his crisp white lab coat and silver temples practically glowed in the honey colored exterior lighting. He had his hands tensed in fists at his sides and Morse could tell, as he braced a hand on the car door and prepared to stand, that the doctor was bristling with irritation, “dead on your feet and dead inside don’t qualify either.”

“ _Unbeing dead isn’t being alive_ ,” Morse grimaced as he pushed himself to his feet. Strange stood on the other side of the car, having attempted to rush out and help, but the injured man didn’t wait for him. Morse cast a sharp eye over the car roof towards Strange, a distinct non-verbal rejection, and finally started toward the double doors on his own.

Debryn, at the very least, seemed mildly amused by the quotation, and bounced up on his toes with a purse of his lips as the only response.

“I’ll wait here, Morse,” Strange hovered, one foot still inside the vehicle and one on the ground, waiting like an obedient hound who had been rebuffed too many times but was still eager to help. Morse may have not wanted that help, but Jim was sure he needed it.

“Don’t,” Morse waved him off, “Get to looking for that suspect. I’ll make my own way.”

“You’re hurt!”

“And a little girl is still missing!” Morse snapped his head towards Strange and felt the sharp pull in his side as he moved. He gasped. A disgruntled, indecisive sound came out of Strange, something between a growl and a groan.

“I’ll see to him, Constable,” Debryn finally spoke up and there was disappointment dripping from his words despite his support of Morse's cause, “I’ll admit him to the hospital myself if need be.”

Morse shot him a look of betrayal and Debryn received it calmly.

“Thanks, Doc,” Jim finally sagged with some measure of relief and with a nod, dropped back down into the driver’s seat of the cruiser. With the rumble of the car motor coming back to life, he was gone.

Debryn stepped back and held open one of the double doors as Morse finally reached him, “I should be home right now, Morse. Despite the letters attached to my name, this _isn’t_ my job.”

Morse said nothing more until they were in the mortuary. He was grateful to find no bodies in sight but he did spot Debryn’s case and coat sitting on his desk chair and it became clear that the other man had been about to take himself home for the evening. Morse felt a pang of guilt for keeping him, but he simply didn’t know where else to go.

“It had to be you,” He breathed out finally. Morse looked around the room, looked to all the doors that led in from various darkened hospital hallways, and after he was sure they wouldn’t be disturbed he continued, “I’ve read some of your papers. Before I came to work in Oxford. Some of the... anatomical studies. I had..” The admission suddenly stuck in his throat. He shivered again, unsure if was his anxiety or blood loss. The words felt like they may choke him, “I need an expert. To make sure nothing was damaged-”

The doctor’s brow furrowed.

“-nothing important, anyway.”

And that was when Morse pulled the blood caked handkerchief Strange had given him from his side and struggled out of his mackintosh and jacket. His shirt was next, and finally his vest, and he shivered, pale and freckled and bloody, before he began to move his hands in front of him. Morse’s fingers trembled as he formed the unbinding sigil, his teeth nearly clacking together in a shiver as he muttered the words, and he felt clumsy and foolish to look so inept at his own magic in front of an audience. The binding finally rippled away like a gentle gust of warm air, and a pair of large ruddy wings - his wings - twitched and unfolded from his back. They weren't massively impressive in his own estimation, more rounded than the swan-like angels that smattered through popular media. Not predator wings like the rare winged heroes in the history books. Just heavy and a bronze-red that was only a shade off from his hair, speckled dark on the outside and nearly white on the inside. They had never felt like a gift or a power, just a bit of an inconvenience, another aspect of him that didn't fit in with the status quo.

As the wings extended straight out behind him, Morse made a sound of desperate relief, and as he stretched them as far as he could side-to-side, they flashed pale and dark bars on their underside that framed his thin figure. With a sound not unlike a small group of birds settling in rafters, the wings folded against his back again, the pale hidden under dark copper once more, and a few of his feathers drifted to the mortuary floor.

The quiet of the morgue was filled only with the gentle sounds of his wings, feathers shifting and ruffling and resettling, moving to fit against his back in a much more comfortable way than the binding provided, but Dr. Debryn had yet to make a sound. His expression had gone from puzzled concern to momentary surprise, and then something defensive seemed to seize his tiny frame as the wings made themselves known. Morse had a sudden terror that he’d been wrong, that this wasn’t the safe haven he’d expected, but Debryn finally relaxed and stepped forward and his look of worry set in again with a familiar furrow of brows. His eyes darted behind his glasses, all over Morse’s body, over his wound and his wings, over his limbs and back to the bloody slice through the soft of his waist once again.

“Your spellwork is sloppy-” The doctor grunted as he moved toward his work area to provide Morse a sanitary compress.

“I’ve lost blood,” Morse bit back with agitation, “and my hands are shaking.”

“Yes, and we need that bleeding stopped, so hold this to your wound for now,” He handed over something clean and white, “And I’ll examine your wings in the meantime.”

Morse’s fingers were nearly numb at this point and he felt clumsy and exposed under Debryn’s scrutiny. He’d always hoped that a man who was a noted expert on winged people may have been one himself but he didn’t sense much understanding from the doctor. There wasn’t a feather in sight. No sympathetic speeches. It was probably foolish to expect that Debryn may have sighed in relief and unfurled his own set of wings, shared some ultimate secret in a kindred soul, that they may have bonded over this one thing, this Other nature of Morse's, but it seemed the doctor was simply that. A doctor. An anatomist. A pathologist who had winged bodies end up on his slab and was too intelligent not to pursue his field to the utmost extent. He was someone who cut people like Morse apart for study.

“I don’t see you doing any magic,” Morse’s mood had soured quickly and his usually elevated temperature hadn't quite overcome the chill of the morgue. He shivered again, “Besides, I'm not friendly with anyone else who has wings. Neither of my parents had them. I learned that spell from a book.”

“I can tell. Your finger forms are clumsy. If you had done it properly, we wouldn’t even be checking your wings for damage. A proper sigil with full focus would prevent damage entirely. I bet you really wear yourself out maintaining that…” Max nodded to his hands again.

Morse wasn’t sure if he had enough blood left to flush, but he could feel his skin getting warm. The doctor was absolutely correct.

“Extend your wings,” Max peered over the top of his glasses and then sighed, his voice softening, “Please.”

Morse did so. As they stretched out again he felt the air a bit more on his left side. It was hard to explain how, as feathers didn’t have nerves of any kind, but they were like an extension of him and he could feel _too much_ on that side. It was like wind through open fingers, or a gap in a warm blanket when you had been positive you were covered. His attacker's blade must have knicked him, taken a bit more than was bargained for. Morse could only be grateful there was no pain.

“May I touch them?”

“Oh-” Morse realised that no one had touched his wings since Susan. She’d been fascinated by them, at least until another flashier pair came along. Swan wings. Angel Wings. Before that, it had been his mother, “-Yes. Go ahead.”

The doctor’s hands were gentle but firm, warm, and Morse couldn’t help the prickle of goose pimples that sprung up along his skin as they moved along his right wing first. He started at the scapular, pressing in along the muscles and tendons to pinpoint the proper joints and then followed the bones as the wing extended further under his touch. Seemingly satisfied that everything was aligned correctly, he then smoothed his palm down in gentle sweeps over the feathers, careful not to disturb them or go in the wrong direction. Another tickle started under Morse’s skin, something warm and not unfamiliar, but very inappropriate given the circumstance.

“You don’t groom these as often as you should. Especially close to your back,” The doctor noted and Morse felt a different sort of prickle - annoyance.

“They aren’t exactly easy to manage,” Morse grumbled, “Especially in a bedsit where I can’t fully stretch them out and I have to be careful about my privacy. I can’t even _reach_ that bit.”

The doctor hummed low and Morse had a hard time telling if it was a good or bad sound. Debryn then moved to the next wing. This one was treated the same as the first. Those warm firm fingers pressing lightly across the lengths of his muscles, smoothing his feathers with the strictest care. Morse couldn’t help relaxing under the doctor’s hands and he was sure that if anyone ever accused Debryn of having a poor bedside manner, that they were a fool. Here, with a winged man under his care, he emanated nothing but professionalism and comfort. He didn’t treat Morse like an oddity and he didn’t treat his wings any different than he would any person’s limb that needed to be examined. Morse found that his wounded side, still held tight under the compress, had also stopped aching as badly.

Max paused as his fingers slid along towards where the larger primary feathers began, “Which of my papers did you read?”

Morse hadn’t been expecting small talk but it was a good distraction, “Well, they all have long names, don’t they?”

Debryn smirked wryly and cut his eyes to Morse’s face, “I think it’s a bit of a rule actually. My punnier titles all get rejected.”

“ _A Wing and a Prayer: The ‘Angels’ of Oxford_?”

“How about _‘One Fowl Swoop - Winged Serial Killers of the Nineteenth Century_ ’.”

“Oh, is that a real one? I’d like to read that..” Morse laughed a bit, then winced as his side pulled. He moved the compress and looked down to find the bleeding had finally stopped, “I think it was something about Dimorphism in the Winged Peoples of Northern England.”

“Not light reading. How did you find it?”

“Wordy. Technical. But generally helpful,” Morse blinked up at him.

“Glad to hear it,” Max nodded and finally smoothed his hand along the top of the wing until he was tapping that particular spot that Morse had thought felt strange, “You got a bit of a trim, so to speak. Nothing dire.”

Morse turned his head and curled his wing around enough to see. His outermost primary flight feathers had been sliced in half and the rest of them lay on the tile floor.

The doctor continued, “No damage to the tendons or muscles though. No blood. A graze, if anything. You can relax now.”

Morse’s wings lowered, shifted, and settled again against his back. The tips just barely brushed the floor behind his heels and nearly crossed when they settled against him.

“Again, If your binding was better, this would have never happened.”

“Are you the expert on magic too?” Morse said with mild exasperation.

Max only lifted his eyebrows, waited a long beat, and when Morse looked away, finally said, “Now, let’s see to this _deadly stabbing_.”

*

Morse lifted his arm and looked at the bandage that covered his waist. The quick swig of brandy had warmed him, as well as Debryn’s hand spread across his skin as he very carefully stitched him up. The doctor was good at distraction, asking about the case and what had taken him to the bowels of the Bodleian, and Morse told him about the anagram. Max was quick to put it together himself and Morse wished he’d had him in the station to help instead of bloody Jakes. He lamented to the doctor about the missing girl and tried not to think too much of Max’s quips about his anatomy after he finished up. Debryn had softened briefly, expressed concern for him, concern about recklessness, about how close he'd come to being brought here much less alive, and it had been sobering. By the time all was said and done, Morse was feeling much closer to normal than he should have for someone who’d been attacked with a knife like some sort of dramatic soap plot.

The fresh stitches twinged.

“I said tight and tender, Morse. Can you at least wait until I’m out of sight before you pull them?” Debryn was washing his hands after having cleaned up all the stitching materials.

Morse had already called out to the station for a car but the uniforms were out en force after news that an officer had been attacked. He wouldn’t be going home tonight, not with the girl still out there somewhere and everyone relying on him to come up with a breakthrough, but he would still be waiting a tick for a ride.

“Interesting plumage-” Max said as he dried his hands. When he turned back again his eyes were on Morse’s wings again, his gaze moving along the curve of them nearly to the floor, “The light in here does most feathers absolutely no justice but the color-”

“Grouse,” Morse said with a snort. He was feeling very exposed again under the doctor's eyes.

Debryn blinked up at the interruption.

“My father used to call me his grousing little red grouse, sometimes just Little Red… when I complained,” Morse snorted with a twitch of lips, “Which you can imagine was often.”

“Ground bird.”

“Yes,” Morse had also never been fond of flying, not in the way other winged folks were said to. Soaring through the skies like the almighty albatross, diving like hawks, swooping like owls, catching drafts into the heavens and leaping from cliffs in daring stunts. There were even special winged squadrons in the war. The Angels of Death, they called them, every single man still alive to this day and with a chest covered in medals. Morse had learned every one of their names as a boy, in awe and envy of their bravery. He was not so brave. He was lucky to enjoy long jumps, pleasant leaps and glides, or low level cruises that didn't cause the ground to spin out from under him. Low altitudes and low danger were preferable to spending his time in the clouds. Even thinking of the dizzying heights now while surrounded by 4 cement walls made his throat run dry.

Max bent down to fetch the feathers that had been lost and Morse watched him brush them slowly across his palm. His cheeks warmed to see them treated so delicately, though he didn't know why.

“These would make decent fishing lures. Do you mind if I-?” Max flashed the feathers in the air.

“By all means. I’m not using them. In fact, when my father got _very_ angry with me he used to say that if I groused too much someone may mistake me for a game bird and shoot me. Stuff me up and make me into lures..” He smirked but it faded quickly, “Suppose that sounds worse in retrospect than it really was…”

Morse looked back up, “Really. You can take them. I don’t mind.”

He watched the doctor wrap the feathers carefully in a handkerchief from his pocket and tuck them into his case. His mother had collected his feathers when he was a boy. She saved all the strays she could in a box and when he asked why she said it was because one day he’d leave her, go off and be his own man, and she’d like to have a piece of him with her. He told her he’d never leave and she laughed and kissed his brow and told him it was only natural. Birds were meant to fly.

But she had been the one to leave him… and he found that he didn't have much of a desire to fly after all.

When Morse came out of his thoughts he found the doctor sans his lab coat and watching him expectantly. He had his hands in his pockets and without the glaring white of his professional garb he looked much less severe. Morse couldn’t be sure what he was waiting for.

“You’d best bind again before your car arrives,” Max nodded to Morse's hands, “You will need to put your clothes back on.”

With his blood pumping fully _inside_ of his body again, he’d nearly forgotten that he was just sitting around shirtless. Winged people ran a little warm and even if he was mildly malnourished and had just been wounded, it didn’t take long for him to adjust to the morgue’s temperature. He was mostly enjoying the space in here, the room to really exist with his wings free and not feel cramped and trapped. Debryn was right though, they needed to be bound again before he rejoined the rest of the world.

After the criticisms on his sigil, Morse found himself struggling with performance anxiety. He licked his lips and picked his fingers together at his sides and rallied his confidence as he concentrated. Morse exhaled deeply as he lifted his hands in front of him and made the first form but almost immediately he found his hands caught mid-movement. With a step, Dr. Debryn was upon him and had caught his wrists mid-motion. He very carefully shifted Morse's fingers. A knuckle was straightened, a finger angle shifted, and as it happened, with the subtlest touches, came a heat. It was more than the intimate warmth of the doctor’s hands on his own or how he'd felt when they touched his wings. This was different. It was like Max was part of the magic too. There was a connection he couldn’t describe, a connection he couldn’t be sure if he was imagining, because he’d never felt anything like it. Perhaps it was just the feeling of magic being done properly, but as Max held his hands in his own and guided them with slow and careful precision through each of the forms and as Morse said the words, the binding sprung into existence so cleanly - so gently - so naturally - that Morse actually took a deep inhale of air.

“I-” Morse started, now nothing but a thin blushing constable with no shirt. He felt small again and his shoulders curled in sheepishly a moment without the need to keep his wings balanced and upright, “Thank you.”

Max had already turned away, gone to fetch Morse’s shredded and stained vest, shirt and jacket, and when he came back to hand them over, his expression was as placid as it always was. Morse had felt something, he was sure of it, but it didn’t look like Max had. He didn’t look like he’d been affected at all.

It must have just been the magic.

“How did you learn that?” Morse asked. His destroyed vest was tossed towards the bin and he slid his arms into the sleeves of his shirt as carefully as he could. The difference in the adjusted binding spell was staggering. He could barely feel the effort behind the concealment and the compression was barely noticeable. His old spell had always made him feel a bit like he was wearing some sort of cumbersome and extraordinarily tight life vest.

“I didn’t start studying wings by chance, Morse,” Max fetched his own coat and pulled it on, “They run in my family. I saw the ineptitude in the medical fields first hand. The lack of care. Doctors treating winged patients like there was something wrong with them...”

He paused and seemed to think, “That sigil - I could do it with my eyes closed. My grandfather used it. I watched him do it every morning before he left the house and every evening when he came home. He raised me. Magic, as I've come to understand in my research, is a bit like a recipe. You can read it in a book, and it'll taste fine, sure, but the extraordinary bits are personal. Tweaked. Experimented with.. and then passed down and further changed.”

Morse felt like something even more personal had been imparted to him. He didn’t quite know what to say. He focused on his shirt, buttoning it slowly and being careful of his stitches as he finally tucked his shirt tails in. When he looked up again, Max was holding his case and looked ready to turn out the lights.

“Remember what I said,” He offered Morse his mackintosh back, “Don’t exert yourself overmuch, alright?”

Morse nodded and gave him a small smile, “Yes. Thanks.”


	2. 1966

Morse reached for a beer on top of the fridge and felt the skin on his back stretch tight to the point of pinching pain. Going through the floor of an aging manor hadn’t been planned and battling a child-killer on the precipice of that same destroyed floor had been equally unexpected. He was certainly feeling it now. The adjusted sigil that Max had taught him at the end of the previous year had proved to be as effective as the doctor had said and his wings were left unscathed and safe in their magical binding, but the rest of him ached something awful and he was sporting a king's share of bumps and bruises in the aftermath.

A visit from the pretty nurse down the hall had not been unwelcome and he had been confident enough in his magic that she’d never even noticed his concealed wings as she went about treating and bandaging the massive scrape along his shoulder blade. Her name was Monica and she’d agreed to go out with him sometime soon, just a dinner, and the ego boost from that was very welcome after the case hadn’t gone quite to plan.

At least some things were looking up.

Morse abandoned the beer to try and reach the bandage on his back. It had shifted awkwardly when his wings manifested and he could feel his skin tugging and the soft downy feathers at his wing joint pulling tight under the half-attached adhesive. It felt a bit like having his hair tugged over and over but was just too far out of reach to stop. He probably looked a right fool, spinning in a circle, grasping at the dangling loose end as it flapped lamely against his fingertips. Straining to reach with a bit more force had him twisting and hitting into the coffee table.

His bedsit may have been small but it didn’t stop the need to stretch his wings. It had been ages since they had seen the light of day so he made do with his evenings of awkward shuffling about in the cramped space, careful stretching, and occasional clumsy catastrophes - upended teacups and spilled pints. His furnishings were sparse, pared down only to the necessities, but it still felt like too much in the limited space.

Morse had intended on doing a bit of grooming tonight, if he could ever get the bloody bandage off, but instead he just seemed to be tottering into his furniture over and over again. The bottle of feather oil he’d set out rattled dangerously across the wood with every bump, and in fear he’d smash the thing (it wasn’t as if it were cheap - and a trip to buy more often garnered looks), he stopped his pointless flailing to pick it up and relocate it to a safer surface until he’d solved the bandage conundrum. There was a knock at the door, not forceful, but loud enough to surprise him and Morse jolted. His knee jumped into the table edge just as he’d grabbed the oil, and as sparks and painful tingles shot down through his shin nearly to the toes, Morse bit back a curse in an effort to stay quiet. A visitor at this time on a work night wasn’t exactly normal.

Morse gritted his teeth and rubbed over his knee and down his leg as he limped the few steps to the door. He tried to be as quiet as possible when he pressed his eye to the peep hole to see who was on the other side. There, distorted in the fisheye lens, was the round and familiar face of Dr. Debryn. Morse exhaled in relief. He didn’t know why the doctor was there, but at least he knew he didn’t need to hide. Maybe he could even get help with the damn bandage that had become the bane of his existence in the last few minutes.

The doctor knocked again.

Morse pulled the door open only wide enough to frame his face. He dare not step into full view, not shirtless and with wings exposed, “Evening, Doctor. Everything alright?”

“Yes,” Max smiled with closed lips, glanced over Morse’s single visible naked shoulder, and continued, “I was just on my way home and thought I ought to check in. I heard you went through a floor the other day and I've brought you something for the pain.”

He produced a bottle of whiskey and waggled it.

The last time they had spoken, Morse had seen a rare moment of vulnerability in the doctor. He'd asked Morse, with a quiet and understated steel, to catch little Maud Ashenden’s killer. Morse had never seen Max as grave as he had in that moment, something shaken just under the surface and hidden again with a tight jaw and a rigid spine moments later. Now the killer was dead, lying on a slab and passed into Max's own capable hands, and some people would find such a grisly end to be a much better conclusion than arrest when a child was involved.

Morse doubted the doctor's homeward commute brought him in this direction, so he suspected that the visit and the bottle were more of an extended hand of thanks.

“Come in,” Morse stepped back to allow entry and after Max had come in, closed it behind him and locked it. His wings, having been shifted out of view, settled back into place.

“I could actually use a hand. You showed up just at the right moment. I can't quite reach this-" Morse curled his arm around and up his back and continued to wag his fingers ineffectually at the loose bandage as he turned to show the doctor his plight.

Max snorted and set down his things and when Morse presented his back to him, the doctor very casually pushed the man’s wings out of his way. People had a tendency to be overly delicate when met with a set of wings, like they may shatter if touched the wrong way or as if they were some sort of overly sensitive private part, but they weren’t raw nerves or made of spun glass. It wasn’t any more improper to touch a wing uninvited than it was to touch someone’s hand or knee, so Max, having been granted permission previously, had no scruples about jostling Morse about when he didn’t hold still or when those wings hindered him helping. Morse wasn’t used to that level of comfort but it was refreshing. It made him feel just a bit more _normal_.

Max ended up gripping Morse’s bare shoulder an attempt to keep him still, and as soon as the doctor’s hand was against his skin he remembered just how warm he was. It had been almost a year since he’d stitched him up in the morgue and he’d always attributed Max’s warmth then to his blood loss and the chill of the morgue, but he realized now that Max simply radiated heat. There was also no ignoring the memory of him helping with the sigil, that way Morse had felt they’d connected through the casting. He had used that binding spell nearly every day since and not once had he ever felt that again. The clean and easy manner of the spell remained but that split second of something deeper, something in his bones that whispered he wasn’t alone in this, had been very singular.

After peeling the bandage slowly away and giving the scrape an appraisal, Max brushed the surrounding area with his fingers to ensure there was nothing clinging or stuck in the aftermath. He gave Morse an encouraging shoulder pat of ‘all-clear’ when all was well and moved to the bin where the bandage was balled up on itself and disposed of.

“Thanks,” Morse sighed and rolled his shoulders just because he could before settling back down, “Genuinely irritating.”

“Glad to see you got yourself treated this time, at least,” Max had turned back around but now was glancing around the tiny flat with barely disguised curiosity, "It probably didn’t need to be dressed so thoroughly.”

“Well, there’s a nice nurse down the hall who took pity on me and I wasn’t going to turn her away,” Morse didn’t like to talk about his social or love life at work, but he was craving validation. Max was generally easy to talk to, and he didn’t think he would gossip or mock him unduly, “I think she likes me. Agreed to go out sometime.”

“Well done,” Max’s brows raised and he gestured to his back, “What about the um..?"

“No,” Morse snorted, “I’ve only just met her. I don’t want to scare her away. She’s already seen me beaten up and fallen through a floor. Wings would make me more trouble than I’m worth.”

“Well, aren’t you?” Max teased.

“Oh, thank you _very_ much,” Morse replied sarcastically.

Morse did spare a moment to think that all over. It was so easy to hide something that was an integral part of himself. In fact it was one of the few things about him that he didn’t even question hiding. Both he and Max both treated these wings like they were a hidden shame, or at least - if not shame - a dire secret. He should _want_ to be honest with his prospective partners and good friends, but instead he had to worry and wonder if and when such a thing was safe to share. How far did things go before he told someone? Susan had known immediately, in fact it was part of what attracted her to him. Max had been let in on his secret out of necessity and the pre-existing knowledge that he was an expert on such things. Morse had thought about telling Thursday a few times but it never seemed relevant. Surely, somewhere it was noted in a medical file, it had to be. Maybe Thursday already knew...

“Drink?” Debryn had moved to the cupboard by the sink and picked out a couple of glasses that looked clean.

“Yes, thanks. Do you mind if I-?” Morse motioned to the bottle of oil he’d set out.

“By all means,” Max cracked open the whiskey he’d brought along and poured them each a finger or two, “don’t let me interrupt your routine.”

Morse pulled one of the two dining chairs he owned to the center of the room and settled on it backwards as Max took up in the only comfortable seat, an armchair, and set their glasses on the coffee table between them. As Morse picked his up for a sip, the doctor interrupted.

“Now is probably as good an opportunity as any to say thank you,” Debryn sounded uncharacteristically awkward, like he wasn’t used to having to give heartfelt thanks in such a manner. Maybe, like Morse, he was better sending a well-worded note, “for catching that killer.”

“If _catching_ is what you want to call it,” Morse shrugged and took that sip before he set his glass down. He curled his right wing entirely around his body, nearly obscuring himself from view, so he could pick over the feathers. He checked for any overt dirt or grime, loose or out of place feathers, and any unforeseen damage.

“Well, regardless, he won’t be doing any more harm and I thank you for that,” Max tilted his glass a bit towards Morse like a toast before he took his own sip.

“You don’t have to thank me for doing my job,” Morse was glad to be mostly obscured by the wing. Max was very good at making him feel on the spot and a warm tingle ran up his spine and raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Morse was just as unpracticed at receiving thanks as the other seemed to be at giving them, especially while sitting about with no shirt on and picking at his own wings like some great uncoordinated bird, “I’m also glad he’s gone - for what it’s worth.”

Max nodded and leaned back in the armchair and Morse continued on at his task. There was no small talk, just the sound of his wings shifting and adjusting as he worked his way over them. It wasn’t uncomfortable, the opposite really, but Morse refused to look up, afraid that if he saw Max watching him, he’d suddenly become self conscious. He’d learned about feather oiling and preening and antimicrobials from doctors when he was a child and it had been his mum who had done most of the grunt work at the start. Even then, there was only the bare minimum of instruction provided. Doctors had a tendency of going one or two ways: to act like you were a 'special case' or to act as if ones wings barely existed at all. When his mother died, Morse did his best within his limited knowledge. He wasn’t an idiot, and he got by, but there never seemed to be the right moment or the proper person, to help him with the tougher bits. To Max, having grown up around wings, it must have been glaringly clear that Morse knew very little about these things besides that they were attached to him and couldn’t be removed - yes, he’d looked into it once in darker days.

If there was one thing he learned irrevocably from Dr. Debryn’s scientific essays, it was that winged people were absolutely positively human. A few extra bones, a new set of muscles, some feathers, yes, but they were human. Not mutants. Not hybrids. Definitely _not birds_. Birds were designed to fly and to preen. Their bones light and meant bend in remarkable ways so they could reach and fix and adjust and every single feather if they needed. They had glands to oil their feathers and beaks to pick out the dust and dirt and bugs. Winged people did not. The didn’t have flexible bones or pliable bodies. Instead, they had magic, and unfortunately for Morse he didn’t know enough to be competent at that either. So as he sat here and groomed now and finished up all the easiest to reach parts of his feathers, he took a deep inhale and twisted himself round to reach all the further and more uncomfortable bits.

In college he’d discovered that the maintenance of wings, the trouble and inconvenience, was only a problem for people with no money. He had a friend then, a bloke named Jerome, who he discovered (by accident) was also winged. Jerome came from a decent family, had a good mind and clear goals. He wasn’t keen on letting his wings be some definition of him and so he kept them just as secret as Morse did. In that secrecy they also became nonissue - a non entity. Jerome had no interest in talking about the gripes of his wings. He didn’t want to share grooming tips and he certainly didn’t want to commiserate about magic. There were no late night talks or mutual grooming. If he was lacking in any of those departments, if any of it became a problem, he just paid for a solution.

 _‘Oh, come along, Morse,’_ he’d said one day with the sort of interpersonal disappointment that always moved Morse into activities he felt he _should_ be doing even if he didn’t _want_ to, _‘My treat. Let me take you to the spa.'_

Jerome enjoyed introducing Morse to the finer things in life. He’d given him caviar for the first time and vintages of wine that neither of them could pronounce properly. He was quick and funny, with a sharp wit and a penchant for gossip. They each got something out of it, Jerome a feeling of being an influence on someone else, a companion with a willing ear to bend, and Morse was enabled to do things that he would have never afforded on his own. All in all, they were well suited and found each other to be very good company. So when the other man tutted at Morse for one thing or other, and said ‘Come along’, Morse made very little of his usual fuss and simply agreed because it was usually worth his while.

This spa was the sort of place that had a shining placard by the entrance as its only identification and a towering, somber faced butler by the inside door named Honeywell or Jeeves or something equally typical who was the best of his breed at service and discretion. It was the sort of place that a winged man of a certain status could get a skilled professional to do all the dirty, irritating bits of his personal toilette for a nominal fee. According to Jerome, with a greased palm you could get a bit more as well, but Morse was too cowardly for anything like that (and he’d been desperately pining over Susan at the time). Morse had gotten bathed and blown dry and groomed and trimmed and oiled and by the time the pair of them emerged several hours later, they were walking tall and proud even with their wings bound and hidden. By the time they had reached the enclosed walls of the college, their moods riding as high as the beaming mid-afternoon sun, Morse threw caution to the wind and stripped out of his shirt and joined the rest of university campus in sunbathing on the lawn... this time with his wings out. It may have been the confidence of youth or perhaps just a lucky day, but besides a few odd looks no one seemed to care. Interested, yes, but moved? No. It felt glorious to lay outside with the sun on his feathers and wind through his hair. Morse had wondered if that was what true freedom was and if that was who he could have been in another life.

That was the day that Susan had noticed him. She’d come over to talk, blonde haired and blue eyed and lovely. She told him his feathers were the prettiest she had ever seen and he told her that _she_ was the prettiest that he'd ever seen and she smiled and the wind blew her hair across her mouth and when he chanced to reach out and tuck it behind her ear, she didn’t flinch away. She batted her eyes at him and smiled and he was unreservedly, unapologetically in love. Morse had never gone to that spa again, nor any place like it. He didn’t have the right last name or the right membership or even good enough grades to make him someone of note, and once Susan had moved on he realized what a little privilege and money _really_ gave you. It was something that he invariably lacked: confidence. It was easier to accept now, years later, that Susan hadn’t cared so much about him as she did about having a set of wings on her arm. She liked the attention. Maybe if he’d been rich or titled he could have used such a shallow appeal to make it stick. If he’d had that confidence, unfounded but powerful, maybe he could have kept her.

"Do you need help with that?" Max broke the silence just as Morse twisted himself around to such a degree that his waist looked like it was at an entirely impossible angle.

Morse blinked owlishly back at him.

Max took a sip of his whiskey, set the glass down, and pushed himself up to cross the room, "No need to stand on ceremony. You've got another pair of hands here, so unless you plan on calling your little nurse friend..."

Morse untwisted and gave Max a look.

"I _do_ know what I'm doing."

"Better than me, I gather," He finally gave in. His wings relaxed when the doctor stepped around behind him and Morse closed his eyes when he felt those warm fingers finally press into and begin working through his feathers.

It felt nice. Very nice. Nicer than he was prepared to admit. Just like he wouldn't admit that he'd thought about Max's hands on him ever since he'd worked the sigil with him those months ago. 

"Your parents were alright with the wings?" Max asked after a couple of minutes.

In retrospect Morse realized that he should have mentioned that there were a few particular spots that were weak points for him. And now, with the doctor’s fingers pushing through his feathers right where his wings met his back, he was having a hard time thinking past the lovely pressure so very close to his spine. If he was a dog he would have been immobilized and thumping his leg in uncontrollable rapture but instead, as Max loosed a shed feather and his fingertips pushed deeper into the plumage, Morse actually tensed and twisted gently and one of his legs slowly slid out across the floor in front of him, toes curled, in a silent bid for _more_. Max must have noticed because he moved his hands along fairly quickly and Morse's mind cleared enough to be cognizant.

“Yes, um,” He swallowed thickly and reached for his drink before he continued, "mostly. My step mother not so much, but I’m not sure if its the wings or just me. Moved away as soon as I could."

"And only learned as much about your kind as you could read in a book?"

"And papers. Anything I could get from the library. I couldn’t actually bring any of it home. If Gwen found it, it ended up in the fire."

He could hear Max’s frown, "So, not much."

"No. Once university started.. Who has the time?" Morse clearly kept his self-care on a low tier of priority.

The doctor went quiet again. He moved through the grooming much more efficiently than Morse had and the detective continued to steadfastly ignore the very pleasant feeling of having someone else with him. Having a set of skilled hands on him had obvious appeal, but this was more than that. It was having someone to talk to, someone who wanted to talk, someone who asked about _him_.

As Max got to the point where he was overlapping what Morse had already done, one of his hands stuck out under Morse’s arm. He could feel the doctor leaning very close and very warm against his back. Christ, he was like a mini-sun. Like a hot rock to a reptile. Morse just wanted to lean into him and soak it all in.

Max’s sleeve was rolled up to the elbow and oblivious to Morse’s dilemma, he made a grabbing motion, "Oil."

That forearm was unexpectedly distracting. Morse should have argued and told him it wasn’t necessary to do any more, but instead he simply handed it over. He was leaving himself in Max’s capable hands. The oiling of the feathers wasn’t very much different than a light massage and it was soothing and repetitive and Morse felt the residual exhaustion of the case finally catching up with him. He folded his arms across the back of the chair he straddled and hooked his chin over them as he closed his eyes. It was hard to tell how long it took, he may have drifted off, but inevitably those hands moved away and so did the radius of warmth Max gave off, and Morse’s wings twitched back to life as he yawned and stretched and opened his eyes. The oil left him feeling sleek and protected, but Max’s expert assistance had made all the difference.

"Did you help your grandfather do this?" Morse asked and looked over his shoulder when he heard the tap. Max was rinsing his hands. At some point he had ditched his jacket and waistcoat, and stood at the sink in rolled up shirtsleeves and braces. Morse hadn’t even noticed him shed his layers. Usually the doctor was impeccably buttoned up if he wasn’t working on a corpse. It was nice to see him relaxed.

With the acknowledgement that he looked good, something inside of Morse fluttered.

He realized how very badly he needed that date.

"Sometimes. When he asked," Max dried his hands and proceeded to roll down his sleeves one by one before replacing his cufflinks. "There are spells to assist, though I realize you wouldn’t have been taught them."

Morse frowned.

"He did say there was no substitute for hands on," It seemed like an attempt to make Morse feel better but didn't do much good.

Max moved back towards his coat and Morse took back up his glass. After downing the remainder of his whiskey, he looked up to find Max holding a book out to him. It looked old, with worried corners and a plain, discoloured fabric cover. There was no title that he could see, just the barely shimmering remains of a gilt pattern around the edges.

"Whats this?"

“For you,” Max waggled it like he had the bottle until Morse took it from his hands, “Better you have it than it take up space on my shelves, unused.”

Morse flipped it open and an aged bookplate inside had ‘ _Ted de Bryn_ ’ printed in neat handwriting. A second hand, sloppier yet more flourished, had crossed out Ted and written ‘ _Theo_ ’. The book was old, but upon further browsing, Morse discovered it was very similar to the one he’d checked out when he was very young, the one that he’d learned the binding sigil from. This copy was filled with notes and annotations - sketches of wings - anatomical details filled in - and commentary. There were more spells with changes edited in and diagrams with extra details added. Very notable and commonly helpful magics had folded over page corners and flourishy borders drawn on. The back inside cover was covered in scrawled observations - the tiny scribble drawings of a bored hand - and even snippets of poetry. Some of it Morse could barely make out due to the handwriting.

It didn’t take being told to know that this had belonged to Max’s grandfather.

“Max,” Morse hadn’t thought before he’d said the man’s name aloud. He was too surprised. Calling him _doctor_ felt much too formal for such a personal gift, “I can’t take this.”

“Sure you can, and you will, because you need it. I certainly don’t,” Max did seem to smile a bit, a twitch of the lips, possibly at his name being used, but he didn’t mention it, “Anything I needed for my research I’ve already transcribed. I’m sure you’ll take good care of it and maybe someday pass it on. To a little one maybe.”

If Morse did have children he wouldn’t wish wings upon them, but the sentiment was rather touching.

“I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” Max rocked on his heels and pressed his lips into a pleasant line that highlighted his dimpled cheeks, “I should go. You’ve got reading to do. And, if your dozing off had anything to say, some sleep to catch up on. _The gloomiest night will wear on to a morning_.”

Morse opened his mouth to argue, but couldn’t find a convincing line. All he could think was that Max had made his night significantly less gloomy. He simply nodded.

Max slipped on his overcoat but left the whiskey. Morse rose to walk him out, fingers still sandwiched between the pages of the book.

“Thank you,” Morse said, as they hovered by the door, “Really.”

“It’s nothing, _really_ ,” Max smiled small again. “Get some sleep.”

“I’ll do my best,” He nodded.

“That’s all we can ever do, eh?” The doctor nodded back and a moment later, was gone.


	3. 1968

Morse pressed his back against the wall, almost tossed himself against it, and writhed his shoulders on the brick in a desperate bid for relief. He looked like a bear wriggling against a tree trunk for a scratch, shifting the sharp angles of his shoulder blades to try and flatten himself enough to gain purchase, to feel the rough of the wall catch on his coat and make as much friction as he could against his skin. There was something very like an itch tingling across his shoulder blades just below the skin. The difficult-to-discern tickle felt like the prickling bloom of a new rash - something he direly hoped it wasn’t - and reminded him a bit of when he stayed up all night going through his LP’s on the floor of his flat, or when he spent too long hunched over the typewriter and his muscles pulled and burned in distress. Unfortunately his night was spent on his back in bed, not hunched uncomfortably, and staring at the ceiling not sleeping did not explain the irritation spreading slowly over his skin.

The feeling had come swiftly, and as he rolled his shoulders again, slipped away just as fast. Morse took a pull from the cigarette pinched between his fingers and frowned his displeasure deeply. He wasn’t a smoker as a rule but Claudine had been, and like all the others, when she inevitably left him it was with nothing but memories and bad habits. He was trying to kick it but if there was any day he needed something repetitive, soothing, and passively self-destructive, it was today.

Morse was exhausted. He was restless. His breakfast had been a finger of whiskey, his lunch two pints of beer, and he’d had nothing solid to eat since dinner the evening previous. His hands were unsteady and near trembling. His skin felt like it was buzzing. He was _angry_.

Nearly everyone he knew was inside the pub behind him being somber and respectful. They were quick with their sympathies, with prayers for the family they would never see again. They wanted to talk about how George Fancy was a good sort, so young, so promising, a real shame.

A sin.

 _‘It’s positively evil’_ , he had overheard in the milling crowd.

Why were they so calm? Why weren’t they angrier? They should have been as angry as he was.

Morse took another drag of the cigarette and pushed himself away from the wall. He started to walk. Away from the pub. Away from George Fancy’s names on everyone’s simpering lips. Most of them didn’t even know him, had never even spoken to him. They were there out of respect and something they were convinced was support. The police had pulled together a near militant display of ceremony and it had been a _show_ as much as it had been unity and respect for a fallen officer.

A twenty-three year old detective had been shot dead in a club full of gangsters next to a brick of drugs.

Another man had been stabbed twenty three times and a teen had also died, barely more than a boy, tied to those same drugs - those same gangsters.

Where was the trumpet blowing and wreath laying for them? Where was the demonstration of unity and power for the civilians? The child? Instead, everyone stood about and sipped drinks and murmured quietly about how much of ‘a shame’ it all was. For George.

There should have been an uproar on the streets.

It was his fault, of course, but not his alone. For once, when Morse heaped the blame on his own shoulders, it wasn’t for dramatic self flagellation. Thames Valley had decided to close Cowley Station, they were breaking apart what few ties of brotherhood he’d found in Oxford, and with all the restructuring and bureaucracy, Morse was positive that no one would ever follow through on finding justice for all the victims. They would just rearrange the officers, disperse them into the country side, and roll along until another massacre happened, until someone more important died, until this gang fueled drug problem had reached a fever pitch and they were knee deep in corpses.

He should have done more while he had the chance. He had been off playing house at the boy’s school, caught up in the disturbing whims of spoiled children, when he should have been giving Fancy more guidance. Morse had been charged with steering George in the right direction. He was supposed to keep him on task but in the end he’d just been hard on him. Too hard. He hadn’t the patience for his youth and inexperience, not when he barely had a grasp of his own authority to begin with.

He should have understood. He should have remembered himself at twenty three.

The last conversation they’d had-

That tingle was creeping up Morse’s spine again, that itching burn, and with it a sensation like he was being squeezed into a piece of clothing that was ill fit. Morse knew instinctively that his wing binding was degrading. He was too tired. Too upset. He’d had the binding on for much too long. Magic pulled, not only from spell form, but energy and concentration and emotion. Bindings were only meant to be in place for a certain number of hours safely, and he knew this well enough. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d felt the tingle that told him it was time for a rest, but it was the first time he’d let it get this far.

After Max had given him his grandfather’s book he’d gone and revisited the theories of magic but, shamefully, had not read much in the two years it was in his possession. His initial enthusiasm took him through the first few chapters, about how magic came from within, about energy flow and emotional effect and organic vs. inorganic material and- blah blah blah - it did get _a bit_ dry. He imagined Max's grandfather had a mind very like Max's own. Morse then decided to skip ahead to the spells that looked the most interesting and useful, like manifesting one's wings through their clothes or minor physical barriers with various uses, and found that it was all rather beyond him. He could have buckled down and given it more of his time. If he'd practiced at what was laid out instead of expecting instant satisfaction, maybe he would have learned something to prevent what was happening to him now. Unfortunately, he hated practice and got quickly frustrated at his own lack of ability, so the book was set aside and it still sat there, several books down in the stack beside his bed, waiting for him to get to it at some point in the future.

He would.

Really.

Life had a way of distracting and derailing him, and the things he often should be doing were not always things that he pursued. His life had changed in these two years, his living situation, his romantic life, and his circle of trust. Strange knew now, about his wings, and Thursday too. There was a small relief in being known and a bit of pride in himself at finally opening up.

Morse took another drag of his cigarette and with every acidic puff felt his magic choke and sputter like an enclosed flame struggling for the last bits of oxygen. Each drag seemed to fuel the feeling that he was pushing himself beyond his limits. The cigarette seared his throat and lungs and that feeling radiated outwards. Soon the itching tingle across his back met the burn in his chest and merged into a cumbersome molten weight against his ribs. The usual magical buffer that kept his wings comfortably compressed and intangible felt like it was beginning to squeeze him and press upon every internal organ as it struggled to keep itself going. It was like he was choking.

All he had to do was release his wings. All he had to do was undo the binding and have a seat by the side of the road and have a rest. Catch his breath. He could walk home, fly if need be, there was no law against it. But that would be sensible and easy, and that wasn’t like him at all. Instead Morse let the binding slowly sap at him, let the magic sizzle across his back like a brush fire. He was playing a game of chicken with himself. Would he cave and give himself relief or push his energy levels to the breaking point?

Morse hadn’t been paying much attention to where he was walking, only that it was away from the city and that he didn’t stop. The sun was bright and warm even with the cool fall breeze, and as the tingle across his shoulders faded out once more, he loosened his tie and took a deep invigorating breath. He had finally passed beyond conveniently familiar surroundings. The houses here were further apart, set back from the road behind ivy covered stone walls and rickety wooden fences, and he could hear the bells in the distance behind him. He knew, walking the way he was, that ahead he would find only green before long.

He _was_ upset that Fancy was dead. _He was_. Death was cruel and unkind, especially something so cheap done to someone so young, but his sorrow was buried under his irritation. He was sure it would rise up later, when the flames of rage had tempered, when his beaten mood reverted to complacency like everyone else’s. Maybe then he would apologize to Miss Frazil for rebuking her. She’d forgive him, of course, as shallowly as she had mourned for a boy she didn’t know with convenient platitudes. After all, those who had known George well had remained nearly silent on the matter. Strange had said little, and Max -

Max hadn’t bothered with baseless sympathy, and even if he had, Morse wasn’t sure he could have been angry with him. He had likely done more for George than any of them had so far. While the police went off to talk and plan, Max was left to deal with the body along with dozens of others. He’d given George favor, taken care of him properly, while still remaining unbiased and professional. It was Max who had to cut him apart and examine him, pretend he hadn’t handed him reports only days before, pretend that he hadn't been flabbergasted by Fancy's base intelligence, pretend he hadn't had the eager young constable buy him a few pints here and there in good will, all while he pulled bullets out of his cold flesh.

What was it like, Morse wondered, to have to flay open someone you knew like a specimen?

Just the thought made him vaguely sick. Morse drew on his cigarette one more time until it stung with the off-taste of the filter and he finally stopped walking to toss the butt down to the pavement and grind it under his heel. When he finally looked up and around, he realized he’d found the green he’d been seeking. Morse was standing on a single lane of asphalt that cut through freshly harvested, olive drab fields on either side. There were no buildings in sight and no sound of traffic. Just the buzz of wires overhead and scrub on either side of the road swaying gently in the breeze. Flocks of birds dotted the razed fields, taking advantage of the recent harvest to fill their bellies. He watched them bob about, pluck at one another, flutter in small groups, and then disperse and take to the sky as a black cat darted through the underbrush and disrupted them. Morse cast his head back to watch them circle above and settle on nearby wires, jockeying for prime position and calling out their displeasure at the cat who had disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. He watched them light again and cruise lazily, black outlines against the bright sky, as they one by one abandoned this place for - no pun intended - greener pastures. The sun had disappeared on his walk, sunk behind an encroaching bank of white-grey clouds, and a tiny primal voice in the back of his mind said that it would be a lovely day to join the birds and fly.

“Morse?”

His head shot up like a deer caught in the headlights as Morse realized he was standing in the dead center of the road, stripped of his jacket and overcoat which he clutched tightly in hand. He was blocking traffic, though traffic in this desolate place seemed to only consist of one single car. The driver called out to him while hanging half out of their window and pulling off to the side of the road. It was Dr. Debryn.

“Do you need a ride somewhere?”

Morse wasn’t sure why Debryn - the doctor - Max - the formalities muddled in his head - was down this way at all unless he’d gone looking for him. That seemed unlikely. Did they talk about him after he’d left the pub? Did Miss Frazil ask what had got his knickers in a twist? Did Jim hover with that puppyish look he got when he was concerned over Morse’s state of mind? Was Max here trying to wrangle him? Did they think Morse was a wayward child that needed steering?

Morse looked back out in front of him, at the fields stretched to the tree line, the blue sky ahead and clouds moving to fill it at a snail’s pace. There was a rumble of thunder far behind him, and when he glanced back at Max again, he saw the sky over the city was dark and foreboding.

“No,” Morse’s head rolled on his shoulders. The sensation of degrading magic was undeniable now. It twinged with a series of acute nervy pops just under the skin and he inhaled a deep breath through his nose as if that would somehow alleviate the feeling of being crushed and burned simultaneously.

“It looks like it’s going to rain,” Max was out of the car and approaching as if he could sense Morse’s distress, “You should get in the car. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

“I need to get out of here,” Morse exhaled the words with despair. He could almost feel Max getting closer. The sound of his shiny black oxfords against the pavement plucked at his senses with every step. It sent a shiver up his spine. The punishment he was inflicting on himself was progressing faster now. The encroaching sensation had moved further up his spine, along his neck, and across the back of his head in a low throb. 

Again that primal voice in his mind said to tear his shirt off and let his wings free. It demanded air on his skin and his feathers. It wanted him to gulp the pre-storm air greedily, to become charged with it, and to take to the skies. Bugger his fears to hell. Bugger it all.

He didn’t.

The prickling moved through his sinuses and the cavities behind his eyes. White hot sparks danced about in his skull, stinging everything they touched, and Morse pressed his palms to his temples momentarily before he smoothed his fingers across his brow.

Max seemed to materialize at his elbow and he was so warm - how could he feel it from here? - but instead of making him more uncomfortable, the warmth settled over him like an insulating blanket. The feeling of being a house on fire, consumed from the inside until the inevitable moment of collapse, seemed to have been smothered for just a moment. It was just enough to keep him on his legs and to dampen the pain in his head.

Morse felt a very keen, and very sudden, yearning.

He wasn’t sure when it began to happen, certainly not all at once, but there had been a cumulative effect over the years, when he and Max had these moments, that he avoided thinking on too deeply. It hadn’t been his intention when he’d revealed his wings to Max the first time, for it to have been a grand gesture, but in retrospect it felt like a turning point. Something drew them together over and over into these odd instances where their relationship blurred some fundamental line. When Max had helped him groom his wings after the Blythe Mount case he’d been so comfortable in it, unbothered by Morse’s plight, and so willing to help. For a man who was usually so unreadable, Max had been amazingly warm in all senses of the word. It stirred something in Morse, an interest that he was always quick to push aside. Later still, after they’d found the asphyxiated body in the Wildwood case, Max’s strangulation demonstration had been more hands-on than many would find appropriate. Morse had felt the doctor approaching from behind, felt him nearly pressed into his back as he slipped the improvised ligature around his neck. He hadn’t stopped him. He’d let it happen, and with a small bit of amusement and pleasure. Perhaps Morse was waiting to revisit that moment with his sigil, something he’d never quite let go of in his mind, and each of these interactions was just a slow progression towards something more. 

He would admit to only himself that he thought of Max’s hands sometimes, the feel of them on his feathers and across the center of his back. The hot, firm pressure of them, the oiling that had sent him off to sleep. The surety of his touch. Unflinching. Intimate.

And Max was looking at him now with that delicate expression that Morse realized he only ever saw aimed at him. It fluttered through him, even as his body neared crumbling.

The doctor’s voice was soft, “You can fly, Morse. Just go.”

Something in Morse broke at that. He looked at his shoes before his head aggressively shot up to Debryn and then to the sky. A bitter sort of bark came from his chest, “I’m afraid of bloody heights, Max. Can you imagine? Someone with wings who can’t fly?”

There was an unusual silence from the doctor and that comforting feeling, that blanket, began to feel like it couldn’t hold back what was coming. Morse swallowed thickly, almost afraid to see Max’s face, but when he did finally meet his eyes, the reaction was unexpected. Max looked deeply moved by what he’d said. Nothing about his expression was overtly different, he still had that careful crease in his brow and that gentleness in his eyes, but there was something sympathetic in the line of his jaw, a soft concern behind his thick rimmed glasses, and Morse felt a resurgence of that unspoken understanding he imagined existed between them.

He wanted to ask what was happening and why he couldn’t shake this feeling when he was with Max, but he didn’t.

“Did you follow me?”

Max looked like he wanted to deny it, like he needed to concoct a story on the spot, but he didn’t. Lies would be of no use to anyone right now. There was enough of that going on at the funeral, “Not directly. I did ask a few people which way you’d gone. It’s not like you made yourself inconspicuous. This shortcut is secluded and out of the way... But if I hadn’t run into you I would have gone home.”

Max seemed more familiar with these back roads than Morse was, though it made sense with how many years he’d been tromping about in Thames Valley jurisdiction. Not that it mattered. None of this mattered. Morse was likely to black out at any moment. At least Max would be there if it happened. Haul him off to the hospital, likely, with that painful caring look disappeared from his face as he admonished him for his carelessness…

Morse sighed and blinked past the spots that had begun dancing in front of his eyes. There was a white edging to his vision now, like he was devoid of oxygen, though he was breathing just fine.

He grasped for normality, desperate not to appear as ill as he felt, and said the first thing that sprung to mind, “I’ve never seen you in a normal tie before.”

Or a three piece suit, but there Max was in a sleek dark tie and waistcoat, and the space usually occupied by his dickie bow looked empty and naked. Morse wasn’t sure that he approved.

“Black bow ties are for evening suits, not funerals,” Max touched his tie self consciously. This time his brow furrowed in a different way, nearly amused, having clearly not expected a criticism of his fashion.

Morse found a sort of surreal nature to all of this. The pressure was building around his body once again making him warm and uncomfortable, a storm rolled in behind them with dark foreboding clouds over the city center, there was a strange thickness and electricity to the air, and Max stood beside him looking as unlike himself as he could. The doctor wasn’t suited to dark colors. He was meant for blues and sunny yellows, florals and tartans and comfortable knits. He was meant to stand next to a body and look unflappable, not to look like a mourner.

Thunder rumbled again at their backs and the clouds moving in were darker and angrier than before. They finally encroached on him and pushed the blue sky away.

Morse felt Max’s hand settle lightly on his lower back. His fingertips barely put pressure beyond the barrier of his shirt but he could feel them like burning coals. His binding pulled towards the touch and he could feel it begin to give way beneath it, like wet tissue paper that only needed the gentlest pressure to tear. The wavering magic rippled right through him, through his insides and his joints which seemed to be slowly turning to jello. The rest of him craved the soothing touch and he wanted to lean back against Max’s hand, but dare not in a very real fear that he may keel over. Morse was stubbornly holding himself together as best he could, knowing full well he could just admit his weakness, that he could just ask for advice or help. He could have done any number of things, but instead stayed stubbornly silent.

What he wanted more than anything was for Max not to pull his hand away. Maybe if his magic broke, if Max kept his hand on him, if he collapsed on an abandoned road from his own stupid neglect, the best case scenario was that Max would stay with him through it. All he wanted, after the shallow and disingenuous funeral, was some real human connection.

Something honest that he could hold on to.

“You’re unraveling,” Max said softly.

By now his binding rippled visibly to the naked eye. It was like a haze around his torso, heat ripples over a hot road. But Max's words had a deeper meaning and Morse knew it. He snorted wryly, “Everything is.”

“What you said in the pub,” Max asked him, “Is that what you think?”

That hand hadn’t moved from where it pressed against his back, his shirt, his magic. It was hard to tell where anything began and ended now. Morse may as well have been made of pudding that Max had sunk his fingertips into. Those white sparks were dancing a rumba up his spine again, tiny stinging pops that battled against the warm insulation Max exuded.

Morse flicked his eyes to the doctor again curiously. It dawned on him that Max had never reached for him like this before. Never touched him without Morse needing some sort of assistance or asking for permission first. This touch was more personal than it ever had been before.

“You said that everyone was thinking, ‘ _Thank god it wasn’t me’._ Is that what _you_ think?,” Max wasn’t looking at him. He was looking ahead of them at the fields, the empty road, and the thin sliver of blue sky that slipped further and further away. His touch was no longer light, his fingers had spread and soothed and now fully flattened against Morse’s body. He was nearly holding him.

_Christ, he was so warm._

“It could have been me,” Morse knew that whatever it was about Max that calmed him wouldn’t hold forever. His fuse was burning to its end now. The spreading magic heat crept across every inch of him. He got the impression it wouldn’t be fading away this time. This was it, the moment to burn out or admit defeat, “Should have been..."

“Morse-”

“Don’t-” Morse hissed and very suddenly his limbs ached like he’d run a marathon, his lungs wanted to scream for air even as he inhaled it, and as much as he didn’t want Max to move away, he squirmed under the hand like it was searing him.

The first few heavy drops of rain began to fall around them.

“You know the last thing I told him?” Morse laughed raw and ugly against the feeling wracking his body. He bent over at the waist, hands on his knees, still talking as his constitution crumbled, “I told him to take his police work seriously. I told him to stop mucking about with his romantic nonsense. The last thing I ever told him was that he had to grow up.”

“Morse-” Max sounded worried again. He knew it wasn’t just what he was saying. Max could see what was happening to him.

He refused to look at the doctor’s face and see that sympathetic furrow. He didn’t want it. He’d lose to such a look. He’d soften. He’d give in. He’d save himself.

He didn’t want that.

“Spare me the pity! Everyone’s walking around talking about how _sad_ it all is. How much of a bloody shame. But I’m furious!” Morse shouldn’t have been talking. He should have been getting out of his shirt and working the sigil. Any second. The next heartbeat could be the one that stole his consciousness and gave him no choice. Could he last to the final second? His fingers twitched. He was beginning to wobble on his feet, “There’s no answer! A case with no conclusion! We should all be out there looking! Instead, they're just mucking about! Squawking! And I’m just steaming. I’m boiling, Max. I’m- I’m burning up! And I’m… _I... didn’t even like him!_ ”

There was a flash of lightning then, somewhere too close, and Morse could feel the hairs on his neck stand up at the same moment he realized he couldn’t go on anymore. A deafening crack shattered the air around them and Morse knew very suddenly how selfish it was to inflict this on Max.

He straightened, cast himself upright like a man possessed, and finally sped his way through the sigil with his last vestiges of energy. His wings should have exploded out of him, ripped through his shirt and sizzled the surrounding air. He should have been brought to his knees from the energy release. He should have been laying in the road like some sort of fallen angel, panting for breath, boneless, weak and pathetic. He should have been cowed by his own foolishness. But instead his wings appeared in a forceful whoosh and there was no tearing fabric, no sap of his life force, no unconsciousness. His body actually flooded with an invigoration - like warm fresh air - and he was still standing, unsteady on his feet, but upright.

Max wasn’t touching him anymore. He’d stumbled back a few feet, and Morse turned quickly to confirm that he was alright. It was too much, too soon, and Morse’s head rushed like the first cigarette of the day. He pressed a hand to his temple as he steadied and finally caught sight of Max. The doctor inhaled deeply and shook his hand, the one that had been settled against Morse’s back moments before, as if he’d received an electric shock. He looked shaken up, his hair tousled from it’s pristine styling, and loosed silver curls clung to a sheen of sweat that had sprung out across his forehead.

Morse realized a few things all at once: His wings had manifested through his clothing - a magic that Morse was incapable of, Max's hand had moved in a swift shape on his back just as he'd worked his sigil, and he’d somehow absorbed or redirected the energy that should have knocked Morse on his arse.

Morse looked at Max and his shaking fingertips. He stretched his wings out behind him just as the breeze kicked up and the raindrops got smaller and began to fall in a drizzle. He felt half alive and it was a vast improvement.

“Max, what did you do?”

“I was just helping,” Max flexed his fingers in and out of a fist. It looked like he was recovering but now looked increasingly like he was the one who should flee, “You’d have passed out, Morse. What were you thinking?!”

“You did magic! You-” Morse moved towards him in a single long stride and captured his wrists. That one hand still buzzed. It wasn’t visible but Morse could feel it just under the skin, “You can use magic.”

“Morse-” Max looked reluctant but didn’t pull away. Morse wouldn’t have let him anyway.

Morse turned Max’s hand over in his own as if doing so would reveal some sort of secret. He flattened it between his own hands, moved his fingers along the palm, dragged his fingertips along the knuckles, and all the while chewed upon the revelation that he wasn’t overly shocked that Max did magic. He didn’t contemplate what that meant though, his logic and sense had fled. All he could think was that if Max had magic, then he hadn’t imagined what he’d felt when he touched him. It meant that connection between them had been real.

He wanted to feel that connection again -  
He wanted to feel -  
He _wanted_ -

And the skies finally opened up. Morse’s wings stretched out behind him to feel as much of the rain as he could as it poured down around them, and without another word he dragged Max against him, trapped him in the circle of his arms and kissed him.

There was a terrifying moment where Max froze under his lips. He was rigid with shock, his shoulders tense and unyielding, and just as Morse had waited until the last moment to release his wings he also waited now through the mortifying ordeal of Max as still as a statue in his grasp. He must have read something wrong, been too impulsive, and his cheeks began to flood with embarrassed flush as he decided that he should pull away. It was then that Max kissed him back. His hand crawled slowly up Morse’s chest until his fingers were pushing through the wet hair on the back of his head. His head tilted with a sigh and his lips parted only a sliver to chance a taste. He was so warm that Morse was sure steam may have been radiating off of them under the rain, and he was so steady and so _wanted_ that Morse actually clung to him, fingers gripping tightly into the back of Max’s wet jacket as he pulled him as close as he could. Every bit of his body sang for this.

As they opened to one another, tongues meeting with a shyness that was quickly abandoned, Morse ached. Ached for that bone deep feeling he’d felt before. Max’s body hummed to him, called to him, he wanted to press into him, absorb and keep this feeling forever. He swore he could feel the magic again, the warm encompassing flare of it washing over him. It was perfect and exactly what he’d been seeking.

When Morse broke the kiss it was like time had stopped, and with it the rain. His head swam and something inside of his chest swelled to bursting and Morse looked into Max’s eyes with awe. He could feel a drizzle on the back of his neck, soaking into his shirt, but his face, still very near to Max’s, felt none of it. He loosened the hand that had been desperately gripping into Max’s wet jacket, and as he went to smooth the fabric straight, realized that he wasn’t touching suit fabric at all. His fingers were buried deeply in warm, soft feathers. There was silence as the sun came out shyly and cast golden beams through the light shower, the storm had blown through fast, and a gathered drop of wet fell onto Morse's head, ran down his forehead, over his nose, and gathered into a large droplet before it fell to the ground. Morse finally lifted his eyes and found that both he and Max were shielded by sizable tawny wing.

A wing that wasn’t his.

A wing that belonged to Max.

His shock was palpable and Morse’s body reacted before his brain could. His wings shot open and beat once in a single powerful movement that sent him backwards several meters and out of Max’s grasp.

“Morse-” Max actually reached for him, arms stretching into the empty air that he’d occupied only moments before, “I can explain.”

“You’ve lied to me” Morse didn’t yell. His voice was surprisingly calm, “For years.”

“I didn’t lie,” Max took a step forward.

“Oh? Just omission?” Morse took another step back.

Max’s wings twitched on his back. He looked like he was going to spread them, one stretching and extending halfway, the other not moving much at all, and then they settled back as if he thought better of it. Max swallowed thickly, made a quick sigil, and the wings disappeared.

“No, it’s too late for that,” Morse felt like he was choking again. This time it wasn’t magic choking the life out of him. It was betrayal. He’d thought he’d found solid ground, thought he'd found something finally that was _true_ in Max, but once again the ground had been ripped out from under him.

He’d never expected it from Max. From anyone else, but not him.

“I’ve..” Morse looked behind him at the storm moving away across the countryside and the blue and sun back over the city, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

His head began to pound again, a gentle throbbing behind his eyes, and Morse wrenched away from Max’s balmy presence just as his symptoms came weakly creeping back. Unbinding his wings didn't fix his lack of sleep. It didn't fill his belly. It didn't bring Fancy back from the dead or rouse the constabulary into an immediate investigation. He should have known Max was keeping something from him... because nothing was that genuine. No one was. Everyone was holding back something. Morse was stupid to think otherwise.

He gave in then, to the whispers in his mind, the ones that ignored his fears and concerns and told him to fly. He didn't look at Max again. He couldn't. Instead he spread his wings to full extension, stretching them truly for the first time in a long time, and he took off. 


	4. 1969

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ( part 1 )

Morse looked down at the wrinkled and discolored scrap of paper in his hand. The address was legible, if not a bit smudged, and even though he knew this was the right house he couldn’t help but check it again. He’d been here once before, eight months ago, after he’d packed his last box at the Cowley office, after his and Max’s encounter in the rain, after he’d gotten some sleep and taken the edge off his hunger. Eight months since Fancy’s funeral. Eight months since he almost clocked himself out in the middle of nowhere from sheer stubborn neglect, since he’d kissed Max Debryn and since he’d discovered that the other man not only had magic, but wings.

When Morse had fled from Max, he’d only managed to fly just out of sight before his vertigo decided it would not be dominated so easily and he’d tumbled groundward just beyond the tree line. He’d trudged the rest of the way on foot in the remains of the rain storm, through a sunshower that would have been lovely if not for the circumstances. He hadn’t the energy to hide his wings by then, and when he’d arrived back at his flat soaking wet and muddy from his fall, he’d collapsed into bed and slept solidly for several hours. By the time he’d woken up, Morse found it eerily easy to gather his wits, to be ready to face Strange and Bright and Thursday at the station with a cool head. It was more of a detachment, an easy distance that imposed itself upon his mind as a form of protection. Even the revelation of Max’s wings was easier to process - or so he told himself - but they still needed to talk.

Morse had gotten the doctor’s address from the phone book just before he closed the doors to Cowley for the last time. He’d jotted it on the edge of a page and memorized it before he tore it away and tucked it into his wallet for safe keeping. He’d gone straight to the house from the station and found the little cottage easily. It was picturesque, set back from the road, and covered in ivy and wisteria with cheery little window boxes and a rose covered trellis by the front door. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, something nice surely, but this was like a painting or a postcard. It was nearly as magical as Morse knew that Max was himself, and he had found himself suddenly very afraid of sullying it with his presence. He stood at the gate instead, watched, and waited for his courage to catch up to his will.

The warm light behind the windows looked inviting and only once, as he lingered, had he seen a hazy human-shaped shadow pass beyond the curtains. It had made his heart clench in his chest to know that Max was only a dozen yards away. What he had once thought was a simplicity of understanding between them had become much more complicated in the blink of an eye. What did Max have to say for himself? What could he possibly think of Morse now, after the fiasco in the rain? They’d been in each other's arms only hours ago and it had felt _so right_ just for those couple of golden moments. But then it crumbled, as things always did when placed into Morse’s hands. He should have had more of a level head and let Max explain himself. He should have raged at him directly, right there on the spot, gotten it out of his system so he didn’t feel like there were things left unsaid. He shouldn't have run away. Morse had tried so hard, in the short time since, to convince himself that he could slide right past the sting of betrayal, but his mind went back to it, over and over, the years he’d struggled since he’d met the man. Years they’d been friends and Max had known his secret and withheld his own. Years that Max could have helped him, even with just a bit of honesty…

Why hadn’t he told him in the morgue when Morse showed him his own wings? He could have told him when he gave him the book, told him any evening in the pub over a pint or on their walks home when they would part awkwardly and reluctantly when their paths veered apart. There had been dozens of opportunities, dozens of drinks nights, and a few quiz nights and just simple chats when Morse had nothing on and he’d stopped by the morgue for a spot of company.

No, he wasn’t quite over it. Not so soon. He wasn’t angry so much anymore. He was just hurt.

Morse never knocked that night. He stood outside of Debryn’s house for nearly twenty minutes. He paced in front of the gate, walked to the end of the block in an effort to leave, and then come back again. His disappointment and irritation rose and fell in a hopeless tide, and then finally, knowing he’d never get past the front hedge, he took himself home.

Eight months ago.

It was likely for the best. He had spiraled badly after receiving his letter about being placed in Woodstock. Morse tried to be as practical as he could about it and did his best to compartmentalize the revelation that the constabulary were exiling him to get him out of their hair. He’d ruffled feathers almost every single year he’d been in Oxford, between corruption in the department and out. They’d hijacked his promotions and put him in jail and he still hadn’t disappeared or given up. It seemed it had all caught up with him now. They’d found their means to shuffle him out of sight and out of mind.

Morse’s life fit in less boxes than he’d like to admit, and took much less time than he expected to pack up. Strange had been generous in offering to help him move out of the flat. He also offered meals on nights that Morse hadn’t been keen on eating, tried to have a pub get together before he left, offered to drive him to Woodstock, and he suspected had hidden some of the booze when it became clear that Morse was living in the bottle. Objectively he knew that Jim was trying to help, that he was worried and looking out for him, but it became tiresome quickly to be fussed at. Morse had grown a half decent beard that winter, something he thought may make a sailor proud, but instead it seemed to read much more along the lines of a straggly vagabond. So be it. He may as well have wrapped all of his things up in a handkerchief and carried them on a stick while train hopping his way to Woodstock. It certainly had a fanciful appeal, but unfortunately he was a man of some small vanity and pride, and by the time he was kitted out in his fresh new sergeant’s blues, the beard had become a respectable mustache and Morse felt rather like a new man, or at least the illusion of one. His anger over Fancy’s death had gone just the way he’d thought, burned out and drowned in whiskey and muddled into something very like complacency.

Morse’s early days at Woodstock were spent alone for the most part and it suited him just fine. It was both a blessing and a curse. He was bothered with mostly menial complaints from the nearby residents, a few old ladies with cakes of good will and notably single daughters. There were the usual feuding neighbors constantly at odds and never a lacking of missing livestock. Morse found himself with an excess of freedom and a severe lack of any sort of challenge. He could go up to the station roof and lay out if he so chose, right in the center so he didn’t have to see the height, lay on a blanket and spread his wings and get air and much needed sun. He could wander outside, find privacy in the unending golden fields, or stay in and blast opera throughout the station without anyone to complain about it. He had a car at his own disposal and wide open roads to speed down to feel the wind in his hair, and it was a relief, in a way, from the stress of constant murder investigations and days on end without sleep.

It was also lonely.

Thursday had once joked that Morse could find something suspicious in a saint’s sock drawer, and sure enough even squirreled away all by himself, it took only eight months for Morse to stumble upon a murder case in a district that hadn’t seen one in a dozen years or more. Unfortunately, as a uniform he was not entitled to much and CID was quick to appear and snatch it out from under him. The brutish Sgt. Jago came first with his spit and vinegar, and it wasn’t long before Thursday showed up as well, cowed behind the ill-gotten authority of DCI Box. Max had arrived before them all, as he always did so reliably, puttered up in his battered old car and set about his business with only a momentary pause of surprise and a nod of greeting for Morse. It wasn’t the time to talk, it was the time to work, and Morse knew at the very least that the pair of them could do that properly.

Max hadn’t changed a bit but to Morse he felt like a sight for sore eyes. The last time he'd seen him he was in that dark suit and that thin black funeral tie and there was an alien aspect to all of it. Eight months made it feel even more surreal, like a warped dream that had taken a nightmarish edge. The Max kneeling beside the corpse now was familiar and comforting, as warm as the summer sun above them, and there was a pleasing relief in the pop of color from his bow tie and pocket square and waistcoat. He seemed pleased to see Morse as well, in his subdued way, and just having him there felt very much like a lost puzzle piece being found and pressed satisfactorily into place.

Now he stood outside the gate to his cottage once again and Morse felt a small pit of dread settle into his gut. He crumpled the address nervously and stuffed it back into his pocket, even though the numbers were burned into his mind and he hadn’t needed it in the end after all. He could never forget the fairy tale cottage, which in the summer light was even more abloom than it had been when he’d hovered outside last fall. His visit now was for work, he told himself, an effort to insinuate himself into an investigation that was not his to pursue. Thursday was under Box’s yoke and Strange was in administration. Max, as it stood, may have been his last hope and as always, the only one he could trust. Fate always had its way of tossing them together again.

Funny, even after the lies, he still somehow thought of the man as trustworthy.

When he’d seen Max again there in the fields, set against the waving gold, under the unnerving buzz of the pylon, he couldn’t help but remember that day in the rain. The image of Max there on the ground as he flew away was burned into his mind. Tawny wings tentatively flexing on his back, blinking through his rain fogged glasses, reaching for him. He could have come after Morse and he hadn’t.

It seemed to matter so little now.

He’d missed his company.

Morse finally pushed his way through that daunting front gate and headed down the path to the front door. He fixed his tie and pressed his hair down and tugged the bottom of his uniform to appear presentable. It was all protection, the outfit and the mustache, but it worked. This human costume had gotten him through the last eight months and it had gotten him here, finally outside of Max’s door, and finally knocking.

“One moment!” Came a distant call, and then seconds later, the door opened.

Max was clutching a cake knife, wearing a navy and silver apron that strangely complimented his own uniform, and as his eyes met Morse’s, the doctor seemed unable to contain a sudden grin.

Morse’s stomach leapt into his throat and tumbled down to his feet. He fought his own smile and the urge to look at Max’s undone tie and the sliver of exposed neck he’d never seen before. Instead he glanced at the cake knife quizzically.

“Oh-” Max blinked and then smiled gentler, “It’s nothing sinister. I was just taking a seed cake out of the oven. Come in…”

*

It was only after several top ups of tea and a piece of cake that they had finished the shop talk and the idle niceties of admiration for Max’s space. Morse had been whisked through the house, from front door to kitchen to garden without much time to really take it in but he could really feel that there was something magical about the place. Now that Morse knew what Max was capable of, that his suspicions about the magic were real, he could sense it in nearly everything. It was a beautiful place regardless, full of the man’s warmth, but less like the emanations of the sun and more like slipping into your favorite cosy jumper after having been out in the cold too long.

The conversation had petered out momentarily, and Morse suspected he was overextending his welcome as Max leaned to collect the plates and cutlery and stack them for washing. It dawned on him then that neither of them had unbound their wings. It would have been a perfect time, sitting in the garden in the sun, spreading them out to absorb the warmth, but neither man had made a move to, nor even spoke of wings. Was this some courtesy for him? Was Max trying to pretend like things hadn’t happened? There had been no apologising yet, no acknowledging of that day in the rain, no approach to the subject at all. There was only chatter of work and Morse’s state of being and then onto Max’s garden struggles and a lament that he had to have someone out to look at the brick pointing sometime soon. As Max scooted forward on his chair, looking very much like he may stand to go inside, he paused, seemingly torn, and finally spoke up.

“Morse,” He pressed a few fingers across his brow a moment, “I’m sorry about-”

“Max-” Morse interrupted.

“Don’t interrupt me, please,” He shot his eyes to Morse sharply, “Apologies don’t come to me naturally and god knows I’ve agonized over this for eight months.”

Had he?

“When you first came to me with your wings, I barely knew you,” Max frowned, “You do understand that much? I’ve kept my private life private for a reason, for a very long time. It’s taken a lot of work to achieve the sort of comfortable life I have. My research papers and the book I’m working on-”

He was working on a book?

“-have only been possible because of my relative anonymity. I’ve worked very hard to be respected for my ability. God knows I’ve got enough against me already to be judged upon. The complication of being Winged is not needed on top of that.”

Morse nodded, his eyes drifting around the garden. It was an admirable life and this level of comfort was something he’d like to strive for himself.

“After the stabbing, after I got to know you better,” He shook his head, “I don’t know, I just didn’t find a time that seemed right. I should have, I know that, but I wanted you to know me as myself. As a doctor and a friend and not as... wings and magic.”

Morse opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. He’d had the same debate many times over the years. When did he tell the people he dated? How did he protect himself from people like Susan who only saw the wings and didn't see him? When did he tell his friends? When he’d told Thursday, the man had already known. When he’d told Strange, he was surprised and a bit taken aback, but Strange was nothing if not a good sort and he adjusted to the sight of them around the flat fairly quickly.

Morse’s nerves fluttered again, his stomach suddenly uneasy as he chose to speak up, “It would have been nice. Knowing I wasn’t alone…”

“Don’t you understand that you _aren’t_ alone? That you never were? You have people who care all around you,” Max seemed rather flabbergasted, “And I didn’t want to just be some resource for you. I’m not a mentor.. I’m just a man. I was afraid of being used. When you told me, it was precisely because you assumed you'd be safe with an 'expert', and yes, I can help you with spells if you’d like or grooming or general knowledge, but you do realize that in all this time since, you’ve never once come to me and asked me anything? I gave you my grandfather’s book and it seems you didn’t learn a thing from it.”

Morse’s eyes dropped.

“I didn’t - _don't_ \- want our friendship,” Max pronounced ‘friendship’ very pointedly, a specifically selected vocabulary, “To be based solely on this particular physical -” Max frowned with an edge of self deprecation but let it pass, “peculiarity.”

“Then why tell me at all?”

Max took a breath then and seemed to gather his thoughts once more, “Because it seemed like it was the right time? I wanted you to know that I understood you and how you were feeling? Before anything went any further with us I-”

 _Us_.

Morse had kissed him. Max had kissed him back. The memory was still electric and under the heavy fabric of his uniform he got goose pimples. The feeling was even more strong with Max actually here in front of him, even with the memory relegated to the same place in the back of his mind where cloudy old memories and half-forgotten dreams resided. It was still a good, albeit broken, dream. 

“You felt it too,” Morse said simply.

Max looked at his shoes. Usually so confident, he looked unsure and a bit uncomfortable and like he was still holding something back. Max took another breath, “The thing is, Morse, when you confessed to me that you hated to fly... Well, I can’t fly either.”

Morse smiled, “Well, that makes two of us then.”

“Not quite,” Max furrowed his brow, “You _won’t_ fly, which you can’t help, I understand that. Really. But I _can’t._ Very literally.”

Max stood up then, pushed himself to his feet, and worked his sigil in front of his chest. It was different from his own, much different, and it felt like the difference between watching a child scribble with crayons and a professional painter delicately putting the finishing touches on a master work. Max’s wings appeared on his back with that same tingling magical breeze, neatly patterned in tan and brown and silver. They reminded Morse of an owl, one of those prey birds he’d always so admired, but when Max stretched them out, one extending fully sideways and beating once in a relaxed sort of way, the other wing didn’t move much at all. It stretched slightly, not even half way, then twitched a bit before they both folded back in.

“A childhood injury that never healed correctly. It just.. doesn’t work. Like a broken finger or toe. I only half feel it's there most of the time.”

And Morse remembered now, pulling away from him in the rain and taking flight, how Max’s one wing had seemed to want to take chase but the other hadn’t moved. He hadn’t thought anything of it besides indecision at the time. Knowing the truth now, he wondered if Max hadn’t wanted to follow after him after all. His stomach turned nervously again.

“You’ve never...?”

“Once, before it happened, with my grandfather. I was very young. But never again,” Max’s wings shifted and settled with finality.

He moved for the plates again, this time following through, and Morse hopped to his feet to help by grabbing what was left of the pitcher of tea and their pair of glasses. As he followed Max he looked over the wings in front of him, well groomed, glossy, and intricately patterned. He found he had so many questions but they were questions he wasn’t ready to ask aloud. He found that he also wanted to touch them. He didn't.

Did Max want to fly? Did he miss it? Did he envy those who could fly? Did he resent Morse, who was perfectly operational and still couldn’t enjoy this gift? Did it ache him, like it was doing to Morse now, to not even have the option of soaring like the rest of his kind?

“You’re very good at the magic, at least,” Morse added as they stood by the sink. He was trying to reassure himself more than Max. Something about the man being broken, being handicapped, was sad and raw and unexpectedly painful.

Max sat the plates down into the basin and then took the glasses from Morse before the pitcher was set onto the counter. He didn't look bothered at all, and Morse felt some shame for thinking of him, for even a split second, as damaged. Max had done so much with his life, much more than Morse, and was a far better man than anyone else he knew.

“Magic is not so very different than science, really,” Max adjusted his specs.

“I realized,” Morse chuckled out some small bit of his ache, “That book is a bit weighty for me.”

Max made a face, “I know that complicated contraption you call a brain can stretch beyond its comfort zone if you really try. Confidence is half the battle when it comes to magic.”

Morse felt strangely flattered, “Well, I still haven’t even worked out the whole wings plus clothing bit. Had a right time after you helped undo my binding. Had to bind them again just to get my shirt off.”

“How very dramatic,” Max chuckled.

Morse only shrugged with a small smile.

He watched Max as he drifted to collect his cake pan and move it into the sink then hang his discarded apron on a hook by the larder. Morse noticed that unlike himself, Max moved comfortably around his living space. His wings tucked tight against his back, the tips never once brushed the floor, and there wasn’t a single instance of him bumping things and over turning them. He didn’t even stand differently, no shift in his posture to accommodate the balance of weight. He seemed so much more capable than Morse was but somehow that seemed perfectly natural and right.

Max was just so… competent.

Morse felt nervous anew, even though Max had apologized, even though he had explained. Morse hadn’t expressly said that he’d forgiven him. The simple truth was that he had a long time ago. He hadn’t actually held any of it against Max for as long as he pretended he had. It had been an excuse not to come here, not to see him, but now Max was back in his life and whatever form that took, it was enough - even if nothing else ever happened between them and it never progressed past a pleasant tea and chat in the garden.

“Morse,” Max was standing by the sink now looking like he was going to do some washing up if Morse didn’t stop him.

“Hm?”

“We’re alright?”

“Oh,” Morse blinked, nodded, and smiled, “Yes, of course.”

“You’re sure?” His brow furrowed in that delicate concern again, “If there’s anything-”

“Really,” Morse smiled swiftly, “I’m just sorry it took me so long to seek you out is all. You know me,” he circled a finger by his temple, “A million things. And then there's this case...”

“The turmoil of a restless mind,” Max nodded, "Of course."

“I should actually get out of your hair. I’m not sure our current CID is up for this one - “ It wasn’t wholly an excuse. Morse had a bad feeling about the investigation and he didn’t trust Ronnie Box as far as he could throw him.

“Be careful,” Max warned.

Morse shrugged and smirked, “You know me.”

“Yes, I do,” Max shook his head, “That’s the trouble.”

*

Several months later, as Morse handed Max his glasses on a wet morning in a sand quarry in Wicklesham, it dawned on him just how much more the other man had come to mean to him since that pleasant afternoon of tea in the garden had brought some measure of conclusion to what had hung between them. Morse felt like he’d been holding his breath for days even though it had only been a night. It was a breath he released now as he watched Max, disheveled and covered in his own dried blood, walk off toward the ambulance and the gathered uniforms who would take his statement.

It was more than the general shock at his kidnapping by McGyffin and his men, more than the thinly veiled implication that Max was used specifically to lure Morse out. There had been a very real and very genuine terror that Max’s binding would fail him and he’d become more to them than some annoyingly astute pathologist who Morse had a fondness for. With wings, any human became a curiosity, and with violence in the heart, something even more unique to torture and destroy.

Morse watched him across the quarry yard, watched him shrug away the offered blankets with a dispassionate wave, watched him clutch a steaming paper cup of tea, and watched him answer questions with a measure of detached annoyance. He had to have been feeling it now, the burning of his binding, that itching crawl up his spine, and Morse almost thought he saw the man roll his shoulders with discomfort, but Max’s eyes lifted from his steaming cup and drifted towards Morse in distraction and he offered him a very gentle and almost imperceptible smile.

He was so much stronger than Morse ever game him credit for, stronger than _anyone_ would ever really know.

Morse was flooded with something, something like determination, as the adrenaline of the night slipped away. Even as he and Thursday discussed the end of the case and the fate of Ronnie Box. Even later after he’d cleaned himself up and rested and gone back to Castle Gate. Even as everything that had been wrong with the year seemed to right itself and fit back into place just the way it was supposed to.

Morse couldn't bring himself to forget the memory of that kiss in the rain. He couldn't let go of the injustice of what had been done to Max. He refused to forget that Max deserved so much more than this.

And he was determined to do something about it.


	5. 1969

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ( part 2 )

The gravel under the tires made a satisfying crunch as Morse pulled into the drive of Max’s cottage. He’d called that morning to confirm that Max would be home, and though it had been hours since, it was the weekend and there was plenty of day ahead of them. As he turned off the engine, Morse played a bit with the idea of giving the horn a cheeky honk but instead he extracted the keys from the ignition and tossed them in his palm as he hopped neatly out of the car. The bounce in his step in recent days was not an illusion or a misinterpretation. The move into his new house had boosted his spirits, and even if home repair wasn’t a particular strength of his, a Morse with a project was generally a satisfied one. The case against McGyffin and his thugs was also progressing smoothly and so he was willfully ignoring that some bits of the case may end up brushed under the rug by the constabulary. One had to pick their battles where they could, and a few years ago this may have been a hill he would die on, but nowadays he knew better than to look a very stingy gift horse in the mouth. Perhaps this was the maturity everyone always implied he so desperately needed, but he was beginning to think that all it was was resignation and a bit of exhaustion that every sensible adult collectively shared.

Morse twirled the key ring on his finger as he knocked on the front door and glanced around at the late fall blooms in the window boxes. A few roses still clung to the vine and brought a taste of summer to the trellis shading him but his eyes were naturally drawn to the crimson Jaguar that he’d parked just on the other side of the path. It wasn’t his, merely a prop in a grander plan, but there was something about a beautiful car that boosted his confidence and brought a smile to his face.

Morse looked back at the front door and knocked again.

With no answer, he did his best not to let his mood sink. Max’s car was in the drive and he’d assured his presence all day, so the logical conclusion was that he was out of earshot or otherwise occupied. Morse backed up several feet and looked up at the second floor windows. There were a few cracked open for air and he hoped that if Max was busy he’d at least hear him calling.

“Max!” Since the kidnapping some switch had flipped inside of his mind. He was no longer ‘Doctor’ or ‘Debryn’ unless a situation called for strict formality. He was just Max. Max at work. Max at the pub. Max at home. Only Strange had made a comment about it. Morse had overheard him grumbling to himself at his desk as Morse set up a meeting with Max over the phone, _‘Shared a flat for a year. Under the same ruddy roof. Broke bread together. Still calls me Strange...’_

Morse decided he would continue to do so, now just out of some small enjoyable point of personal spite.

“In the garden!” Max’s voice rang distantly.

Morse took a few long strides across the lawn, careful not to ruin the perfectly mowed grass as he let himself in through the gate on the side. There was a border of hedge and low fence, a small path past potted plants and kitschy little moss covered statues, and finally Morse was in the garden proper. Besides some change in what was blooming at any given moment, the garden looked very much the same as it had in July when he and Max had shared tea and cake and talked corpses and wings and apologies. It felt like an age ago now, and while he wouldn’t call himself a regular visitor, he was almost comfortable in Max’s living space. The back door was propped open with a muddy boot and the soft sounds of radio drifted out from the indoors. Despite the encroaching winter chill, the day was sunny and there was no breeze, so Morse hadn’t bothered with an overcoat. The fact that Max was outside and had his windows and doors flung open, told him that the doctor was also unbothered by the autumn weather. In Morse’s grand plan, this was a boon.

Unfortunately, Max was nowhere to be seen.

“Where are you?” Morse lifted on his toes to peer over the flower beds and dropped back to his heels when a gloved hand and some clippers lifted and waved from somewhere near what he assumed was the back end of the garden. Morse thrust his hands into his pockets and followed a designated route of paving stones until he was forced to veer away from their guiding path and his steps became more careful and deliberate. He passed beds of flowerless green and then banks of low ground cover dotted with flowers of a miniscule size. Hidden to the right of him were vegetable rows which were invisible from house but at this time of year were stripped nearly bare except for a few dried curling vines and the remains of a gourd that had met a grisly rodent-assisted end. Morse finally spotted Max crouched along a back wall that was lined with more roses, squat bushes of a different breed than the others Morse had seen. He was wearing a wide brimmed hat, a pair of gardening gloves, and was kneeling on a folded towel as he snipped and clipped as precisely as he would fillet a fresh cadaver.

Max’s wings were visible, as they would be in the comfort of his own home, but it still felt odd for Morse to see them. He had them lifted halfway to keep from dragging in the grass so Morse took the opportunity to admire them as much as he could before the doctor realized he was there. Much like his own plumage was only a shade off from his hair, the dappled dark and light of Max’s feathers complimented his dark hair and silvering temples and shone just as much in the light. What was truly remarkable was that while Max clipped and trimmed and hummed quietly to the distant sounds of the radio, birds had settled upon him, a few sparrows and a rather round robin, and they seemed to treat him very much like a piece of patio furniture or a clothesline, something to perch on and relax. Max, for his part, seemed unbothered by it. It was almost as if he didn’t even notice until Morse took a step too close and the birds let out a smattering of surprised sounds and fluttered away in a mad rush.

Max turned to glance up at him and squinted against the sun, “Ah, there you are.”

“So is this house _actually_ from a fairy tale?” Morse looked around and back at the cottage, “Do you sing and orchestral backing swells and the birds sew you ball gowns and clean your chimney?”

“Well, the mice have managed me a few bow-ties,” Max said dryly. He sat back on his heels and put his clippers aside, “But if you’re needing a gown I know a badger I can put in a good word with. Are you sample size? I'd say maybe an empress cut? How about something to show off that neck of yours?"

Morse gave him an unamused and deadpan stare while distantly wondering if his neck was of particular interest to Max.

“But when it comes to feather dusting,” Max’s wings fluttered pointedly, “I have it handled.” He pursed his lips with amusement and plucked off his gardening gloves finger by finger.

Morse shook his head and as Max shifted to rise, he offered him a hand. The doctor paused at the unexpected gesture but did, after a moment of contemplation, accept and haul himself to his feet. Morse would never quite get used to the warm tingle that went through him everytime he touched Max’s skin. He knew now that it was his heat, his magic, and he had never met anyone else who radiated it quite like Max did.

On his feet, Max brushed off his trousers. They were clearly an older pair, threadbare and mended in spots, the sort of trousers you wore for doing chores all day and not stepping foot outside the front door. Morse almost felt bad that he’d popped round to spirit him away from his day of relaxation. As much as he was used to seeing Max buttoned up for work, this domestic side of him was also strangely well suited and he loathed to disturb it.

Max swept the hat from his head and deposited all his gardening accessories into it before he pushed a few stray hairs from his forehead with the back of his wrist, “I know that moments of true calm generally escape you, Morse, but in my experience most animals appreciate a relaxed personality."

Morse actually laughed a little, "I may not be what many call easy going but you’re not the bloody Buddha either, Max. What that was, was magic."

“It certainly was not,” Max huffed. He gestured to the house and indicated they walk, “Animals have always liked me. Ever since I was a boy. If you respect them, they will in turn respect you. I just don’t go stomping about importantly like _some_ people.”

Morse wasn’t in the mood for a debate on the topic, and by the steel in Max’s spine at the implication, he knew he wouldn’t find any satisfaction in it either. It was clear that Max found nothing out of the ordinary in his friendliness with nature, regardless of the fact that Morse could practically feel the magic bleeding off of everything around him. For such a smart man, he was being deliberately obtuse, but Morse was going to let it go for once.

With the matter put to rest, Max led them to the patio before taking a moment to stretch. He bent a few degrees with his hands on his lower back until something popped audibly and the doctor made a soft sound of relief and finally straightened. His wings also stretched briefly before they tucked tight and compact against his body.

“Now,” Max turned back towards the house and approached the open door, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

When Max turned to look at him, Morse could see where his stitches had recently come out. There was a fresh pink scar along the hairline by his temple and a new break in the end if his eyebrow where a smaller wound had also healed. Morse couldn't help giving Max a once over to ensure everything else was intact. It had taken a week for him to not wake up in the night and worry that someone had come back for the doctor in a bid for revenge. He didn’t have the courage to pursue it, to call Max and check up on him, and he hadn’t dared to tell him of his worries either, but he had found a variety of excuses to harass him during daylight hours instead. After enough casual morgue drop-ins and at least one impromptu lunch together, the worry had become less pressing. It was already hard enough to know that Max’s abduction had been all his fault. It would have been even worse to have to _talk_ about that.

"I need your help with something but it does involve going out," Morse held the back door as Max kicked the old boot away from propping it open.

"No more forthcoming information than that?"

"Absolutely not." Morse smiled, “I do promise it’s entirely innocent. You might even have a bit of fun.”

“The man with the miserly mustache is going to lecture me on having fun,” Max’s lips twitched with the beginnings of a smile and he tossed his hat and towel and gloves onto a squat rack just inside the back door, “What is the world coming to.”

Morse ran his fingers over his mustache. It was due for a trim but he’d been finding the maintenance to be tiresome. After returning to CID and his position as Thursday's bagman, it felt a bit unnatural. Thursday’s bagman didn’t wear uniforms or mustaches. They were a pair of coppers who were polished and professional, they wore as little guise as possible. Morse had started to think that the only reason he kept the thing this long was to show that he was committed to something, to anything really. Especially in the face of all the mockery and opposition.

Maybe it was time to shave.

Max had gone and poured himself a glass of water, drank it down, and then finally agreed, “So long as you don’t mind me changing, I’ll be ready in two shakes. Make yourself comfortable. _Mi casa es su casa_. What, pray tell, is the dress code for this mysterious excursion?"

"Casual. And I’ll meet you out front, if it's all the same. Take your time."

Max’s brows lifted but his expression said it made no difference to him. He disappeared up the stairs and Morse went out the front door and waited. He leaned against the car in a way he hoped looked relaxed but poised, legs crossed at the ankle, and arms across his chest. There was something about a nice car that brought out the Prima Donna in him, a bit of drama and importance and pride. It wasn’t often that he wanted to make an immediate impression, but now was one of those times.

Max emerged from the house and hadn’t even closed the door fully behind him before he was gaping, “What in the hell is that?”

Morse couldn’t help a quick grin as he patted the side panel he lounged against, “Jaguar E type convertible. Do you like it?”

“It’s certainly something,” Max blinked a moment longer before he tore his eyes away and turned to lock up. By the time he was moving towards the car, Morse was standing and had shifted aside so Max could give the sleek red convertible a more thorough once over.

“Honestly, Morse, If I didn’t know better I’d say you were on the take.”

“That’s not even funny, Max,” Morse looked briefly stormy.

“I’m not well informed on police salaries but I’m sure a new sports car isn’t in the budget after you’ve just got a mortgage..” Max didn’t touch the car, he seemed rather afraid to, but he did ghost his fingers along the line of the bonnet.

“Oh!” Morse snorted, “It’s not _mine_. It is new though, a new model at least. I’m taking it for… a test drive. A lend..” The dealer had become much friendlier with the police after a few assault charges were handled quietly a few years back. Morse only had the car for the afternoon and while he very much planned to take it back spotless and in one piece, he also would not let the opportunity pass to put the thing through its paces.

“And where, may I ask, are we going that warrants such flash?” Max continued to stand by the passenger door and Morse was a bit afraid he wouldn’t actually get in, so he practically leapt to open it for him and herd the man inside.

Only when Max had sat himself down did Morse glide his way into the driver’s seat. The doctor eyed the interior carefully, albeit appreciatively, as if even breathing too hard would damage something. Morse shot him a glance and noticed that besides Max’s wings being bound and out of sight, that he was tie-less and damp from a quick washing up. The moisture brought out defined curls behind his ears and on his forehead and there was an inch of throat visible that Morse was sure very rarely saw the light of day. Even with a navy coloured jumped pulled over his open collared shirt, Max once more confirmed that he was comfortable at his most casual in Morse’s company and it sent something lovely prickling along his skin. It was also the realization that Max looked very good, and that his eyes were very blue, and that he didn't seem to mind going out with Morse while given only the meagrest of explanation.

“Just going on a drive. Is that alright with you?” Morse's hand hovered over the key and when Max nodded, he started the engine with a pleasurable rumble. Cars were one of the very few things that could rouse Morse from his usually distant interest. Just the sound of the motor made him grin. It was a sound that was as pleasing for him to hear as Rosalind Calloway hitting a high note, as inspirational as a Wagner symphony. He could feel it through his feet and his legs and up through his hips, a power he could never muster on his own but could be bought and controlled and maintained. Motoring was one of very few interests given to him by his father that he genuinely appreciated.

“Oh, it’s lovely,” Morse muttered, mostly to himself.

Max shot him a glance like he had grown two heads, curled his hand into the door handle tightly, and exhaled as if they were about to charge into battle, “Once more unto the breach, I suppose.”

Morse grinned and as he pulled away at too high of a speed, the car sent a shower of gravel up in its wake. There was a small sound of surprise from the doctor (and a grumble about raking the stones back later) but Morse was already on the main road and speeding them along. He wasn't driving unsafe, just fast, and anytime they hit even the shortest straightaway he pushed the gas down just a bit more. Max had flattened in his seat, as much as a man of his build could, and he looked like he may have been holding his breath, but once he was accustomed to it, and sure that Morse knew (mostly) what he was doing, he seemed to relax. Being uncomfortable gave way to curiosity, and soon Max looked very much like he was trying to discern what route Morse was taking them on.

“My father was a driver,” Morse finally volunteered above the sound of the wind. He looked over at Max and was pleased to see him not looking like he may tuck and roll out the door in self preservation.

Max met his eyes curiously. Both of their hair was whipping back from their heads, collars ruffling in the breeze, and Morse thought they must’ve looked rather mad, instead of impressive, but he was having a very good time with it.

“Taxis mostly, but he did drive the Aga Khan for a time..” It was the only story his father ever told about his job that carried any pride, though there were some unsavory tales, and that was always how his father explained away his extra income. If the money came from elsewhere he didn’t intend to find out, "I was practically raised under a car bonnet. My mum would joke that she couldn’t leave me alone with him for fear he’d just prop me on the engine in a blanket to keep warm and rumble me to sleep.”

Max smiled at that, lifting his own voice above the engine’s revving, “I learned to drive a truck originally. With my grandfather. There was never anything to do in the country once you reached a certain age. Drive about when you were allowed to, drink and -” Max pursed his lips, “Anyway, at the point where I had gone away to college, I’d never driven anything smaller than a pickup. By the time I could to get myself a car, honestly, I was rather disappointed. So low to the ground…"

Morse glanced at him.

Max waved a dismissive hand, “I know. Small man, big truck-”

Morse laughed, “I wasn’t going to say a thing.”

By now it had become clear where they were headed and Morse slowed down through the neighborhoods where the traffic increased. After a few turns they were surrounded by fields, and another minute or two they were pulled off onto that same strip of asphalt that they had met on a year before after Fancy’s funeral in the rain.

It looked nearly identical, sun and blue sky, razed mottled brown-green on either side, and the hum of the wires above them. Birds still hopped and pecked and bickered and that black cat was back, this time not disappearing into the brush but sitting in a flattened patch of grass grooming itself right under the shade of a slatted wooden fence. It raised its head as the car came to a stop and then resumed when it found no interest in the convertible or its occupants.

Beside him, Max looked understandably cautious. Morse hadn’t been back here since he’d flown off that day, and he assumed that Max hadn’t either, but this wasn’t to revisit the past. This was something else and maybe, in the process, they could reclaim something that had been lost. Either way, Morse didn’t want the other man to be worried.

“Now, I’m going to need you to do two things..” Morse turned off the engine and turned a bit in his seat, “The first of which is that I need you to drive.”

“What?”

“ _Guidare. Fahren. Conduire…_ To Drive.”

“I bloody well heard you,” Max’s deadpan was impressive but he seemed to sense, despite the resistance, that he would bend to Morse’s wishes. Surely the appeal of zipping about in a roadster also wasn’t lost on him, “Well, get out then.”

Morse smiled small again before he disembarked but he didn't go too far before he was catching Max by the elbow as they crossed paths in front of the bumper. He could feel his warmth even through his jumper and shirt, “The other thing I need is um..”

Max’s brow furrowed.

Morse thumbed towards his own back, “Wings. Could you possibly do the-”

Max barked a wry laugh, “You still haven’t figured it out?”

“I’ve got other things on my mind, you know!” Morse complained before softening, “Besides you’re very good at it.”

Max sighed, though his cheeks seemed to get a bit of color at the compliment, “Turn around.”

Morse did. He closed his eyes when he felt Max’s fingers on his back, a thumb and forefinger pressing and dragging down his spine, and then there was that warm pudding feeling again, that sensation of Max dipping into the magic of his binding and manipulating it. This was different from the last time. He wasn’t about to faint, he wasn’t about to explode, there would be no blowback from Max’s intervention. Instead Morse was able to enjoy the feeling, that tingle of connection, like a spark of static that tugged at the back of his navel and warmed him through the middle. In less than a second his wings were there with the usual warm woosh, and Max’s hand, instead of pulling away, rested between them for just a few more heartbeats. His fingers brushed once over the downy feathers at his joints and then patted gently right between them in confirmation that he was finished. Morse had goose pimples when they finally moved apart.

There were no more words until Max was in the driver’s seat and Morse in the passenger’s and the doctor still seemed a bit puzzled about where this was all going, “What is our destination?”

Morse shifted uncomfortable. Sitting in a car with wings wasn’t exactly ideal but if he got his way, it wouldn’t be for very long, “Straight ahead.”

“To _where_ , exactly?”

“To _nowhere_ ,” Morse said emphatically, “Just drive.”

Max huffed out a small breath and finally turned the key in the ignition. The jaguar started up with that same pleasurable rumble and Max, now with the lovely vehicle in his own hands, tested the engine with a rev or two of his own. He gave Morse a look, “Oh. It is nice, isn’t it?”

“I told you.”

The cat on the side of the road perked again as the car pulled away at a very safe and legal speed and Morse snorted derisively from the passenger seat, “C’mon Max, put your foot down.”

The doctor gave him a look and went just a little bit faster.

Morse began to shift, he pulled his feet up into the seat and pushed himself up like he was going to stand. Instead, he sat on top of it, his arse against the headrest and the soles of his shoes settled on the leather, “Faster!”

Max hissed at him, “Get down!”

“No!” Morse’s eyes were bright and he was barely restraining a grin. He extended his wings behind him and there was a woosh as they caught the wind and his body lifted an inch off of his perch. Morse gripped the windscreen to keep himself held down, “Faster!”

Max still looked concerned. His eyes darted between Morse's body almost lifting from the car and then back to the road. Whatever Morse was up to he wasn't going to stop and once Max got a sense of that, he complied and put his foot down.

They burned along the road, Max finally giving in to the questionable safety of the feat and Morse leaning forward to brace himself against the power of the air rushing over him. His wings moved gently as if he were gliding but he was planted tight, never rising above the car or taking to the air. Morse closed his eyes in blissful relief. Like this he could enjoy the feeling of the wind, the rush of it, without the fear of the ground spinning up to meet him. It was everything he could want, the sensation of flying without the work, a beautiful car underneath him, and if he reached out with his senses far enough, there was Max’s warmth reassuring and right there beside him.

He wasn’t sure anything else could be more ideal.

“Hold tight!” Max yelled above the sound of the wind and when Morse opened his eyes he found that their strip of road was coming to an end. Ahead was a T junction where a single car ambled past in what looked like slow motion but Max didn’t look like he intended on stopping or slowing at all. Morse did as he was told, holding tight, as the end of the road grew nearer and nearer and as another car rumbled by the intersection, Morse began to worry about what the doctor’s plan really was.

At the very last second, Max shifted and spun the car into the sort of hairpin U-Turn that left a streak across the cement, the sort that brought the soft scent of singed rubber along with it, and the sort that had Morse gripping hard onto the seat and the windscreen and swallowing his laugh of both joy and terror as the inertia had his stomach hitting his ribs and the air ripped from his lungs. When the car came to a stop they were facing the direction from which they had come, that unremarkable ribbon of road set between the empty shells of harvested fields. Morse let out a desperate and breathy laugh and slid slowly down into his seat as best he could.

“Where did you learn to drive like that?” He gaped.

Max just shrugged with a wry smirk. His hair was blown up into wild waves and his own cheeks were a shade of pink that echoed Morse’s own windburn, “Something I picked up...”

“ _Who are you_?” Morse laughed with disbelief. It was a statement more than a question.

“I should be asking you that,” Max’s hands slid from the wheel as he shook his head.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you showed up at my door with a bloody convertible today. You spend most of your time avoiding people, trying to make the barest minimum connection unless someone catches your eye, and you exist in this voluntary social purgatory of your own making,” Max had looked off down the road and his thoughts seemed to be gathering speed, like a snowball rolling downhill. Max patted the wheel, “..and then this happens.”

Max sighed, “You’re brilliant - dazzlingly so sometimes - but only confident when you least need to be. And then you spiral out into darkness and exile and depression and spit in disgust at the world - and dear god, Morse, you’re stubborn to the point of stupidity. I’m not sure if you are trying to keep your secrets or broadcast them to the world... I don't even know where this is headed besides that you're one of the most confusing human beings I've ever had the privilege to know. Anyone with a lick of sense would-” Max was looking at him now and even as he said it, he looked as if he were revealing too much, "How could anyone turn their head away from you?"

Morse blinked. He should have found insult somewhere but his mind was stuck on the compliments. He was well aware of his own difficulties as a person. He was well aware that he could be a chore. He knew he wasn’t good at all the social graces. He also knew that he had his moments of craving attention, that he needed to be continually validated. More so, he knew in his gut that he _deserved_ it. It wasn’t him that was wrong, it was everyone else. He could see, logically, how all of that came out a bit confusing.

But Max wasn't rejecting him. In fact, it sounded like the opposite, and the pair of them had left one thing hanging that stole into his thoughts too often. There was something between them that they were ignoring. Even if their friendship had resumed unhindered, that moment in the rain - the kiss - was still unforgettable. How many nights had he tried to think of ways to broach the subject? How long had he tried to convince himself that he shouldn’t want something he couldn’t have? How long had he tried to convince himself that he shouldn’t want a man who had lied to him - that he had fled from - that he’d been using in his mind exactly as Max had expressed not wanting to be used. 

“What about you?” Morse tilted his head slightly.

“What?”

“You’ve built up your walls so completely that I’m positive you constructed your own cottage, brick by magical brick, with your bare hands with the express purpose of keeping everyone in the world out,” Morse shook his head.

“My cottage does have doors,” Max said, continuing the analogy.

“Locked up tight.”

“Not so tight. Some people have no problem dropping by for tea and information they aren't supposed to have," Max's eyes narrowed slightly, "and I’ve never turned them away. And sometimes they show up with bloody convertibles-”

Morse actually grinned now and Max looked a little flabbergasted with him. Just the hint that he was out of step, that playing along to Morse’s piteous argument had led him in a circle that pushed them both back together again. The fact that Max didn’t seem sure where he was going with his proclamations was so deeply endearing.

“- and I wish you would stop saying my house is magical. I’ve made a point not to use magic irresponsibly. It’s a slippery slope of privilege you know-”

That had Morse pausing, “But it _is_ , Max. I can feel it.”

“What?” Max blinked.

“Your magic,” Morse took a chance, reached out, and took Max’s closest hand. The warmth and tingle sent a shiver up his spine, “I can feel it. Can’t you?”

Max looked at Morse carefully, “Do you feel magic all the time?”

“Well it practically bleeds off of you Max. I can almost taste it. That first time I showed you my wings - every time after. In your house it just covers everything - and your garden…”

“Morse,” Max gripped the hand that Morse had taken, “That’s extraordinary.”

“Is it?”

“It’s not unusual to be able to search out magic by touch, when you know it should be there, but to sense it all the time - on people and objects? By proximity?” Max shook his head as if he were clearing it, “Amazing.”

Morse felt himself flush. He’d thought this was something normal for people with magic. He’d always felt it, but was lousy at application, “So you can’t..?”

“No,” Max blinked, “Not in that way. Morse - I’ve never met anyone who could do that. What’s it feel like?”

Morse didn’t know how to describe it. How did you describe smell? Taste? How did you describe love or hate or the color yellow? Magic just was. It always had been. Like the book he barely even read had told him, it varied with willpower and emotion, with contact and attachment, and sometimes it was hard for him to tell what was what. But with Max it had grown. From a tingling warmth and a suspicion there was more behind it, to a very keen and distinct aura that he could simply reach out and find if he needed it. The more time he spent with the man, the more attuned to him he was. The worst part was, that he wanted to be. If Max were to reject him now, he wasn't sure that it was something he could turn off.

He looked down at their hands and he willed Max to feel it too, even if he couldn’t make him, even if the magic didn’t work that way. He wanted him to know how it felt to him when they were together. He wanted to share that complete feeling he’d been chasing since Max had stitched him up, to understand why he'd never quite abandoned hope of something more. It meant so much to Morse that he didn’t feel alone when he was with Max. He needed the other to know that he was his friend - he was something infinitely more - he wasn’t a resource or a mentor. Max was valued and cared about… needed… craved..

“It’s like.. understanding,” Morse pressed their palms together and when Max didn’t pull away he tangled fingers with him, “Warmth.”

And that was when Max kissed him. He used their tangled fingers to tug Morse across the center console and Morse met him halfway and shivered as Max cupped his cheek. This wasn’t the same as that kiss in the rain. There wasn’t the same desperation, the same mania, Morse clinging to a rock in a torrid sea of exhausted anger. This was warm and soft and had promise and potential. Neither of them could be called an expressly innocent soul, but there was a purity in this that he couldn’t put into words. They both were testing here, taking baby steps, exploring the reaches of something that they had only scratched the surface of. Their past mistakes would not define the future, and when they finally broke apart, Morse’s whole body tingled and his heart pounded in his ears and he knew he wanted more.

Max hadn’t fully let him go, his hand was curled around the back of Morse's neck and his fingers moving through the curls at his hairline. His voice was hushed as he held him close, “Don’t run this time. Or fly away.”

“I won’t.”

“Come back with me.”

“To your magical cottage?” With his magical hands...

Max exhaled audibly through his nose and his lips quirked with affectionate annoyance, “Yes.”

A third of him was already there, pulling Max through the cottage door so he could press him against it. Another third of him wanted to stay right here and have a few shenanigans in the car while he had it. The other third won out, the one with sense who realized he could indeed have it all if he had a bit of patience.

“One condition,” Morse extracted himself and guided Max’s hand from his neck to settle on his knee.

“What’s that?”

“You unbind your wings and get in this seat. It’s your turn,” Morse patted the passenger seat beneath him and glanced along Max’s bare back, “I’ll drive.”

Max licked his lips, squeezed Morse’s knee, and coaxed him forward to kiss gently one more time and in it Morse could feel Max's own restraint and impatience and barely hidden desire. He murmured with a smile, “Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the Endeavour era for this fic. I hope it didn't feel too abrupt. They were basically already like 95% there.  
> There will be another chapter that jumps up into a more modern age but it will serve as an epilogue (and a bit of a nod towards what greenapricot has written in the [Invisible Leaf](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1342204) series).
> 
> Here's some notes on lore I guess (and if you have questions, ask!): 
> 
> 1) The car is not Morse's jaguar, it really is a loaner. [Here is what it looks like](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7hf4kQwe1fk/maxresdefault.jpg). Here is [what its like to drive it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ei9VwN-4c).  
> 2) Morse's magical 'sense' and Max's affinity with animals are unique _passive_ abilities. Max is also not the end-all-be-all of magical knowledge. He's just a guy who is good at it (and better than Morse) so it's not like he knows everything. Mostly, hes an anatomy expert *wink*. Maybe there's really mundane magical transference with the house/garden.. but mostly what Morse feels there is all just his own senses being immersed in Max's space.  
> 3) My first draft of this story was about Morse discovering that it was MAX who had wings (and couldn't fly). So that 'twist' was actually the entire point in my mind. It was actually giving Morse wings as an afterthought that eventually pulled the plot together... and of course in Morse fashion he took the whole thing over.  
> 4) A lot of Max's past (and how his wings were damaged) is rather sad and I decided in the end not to drag the plot down with too much more melodrama.


	6. 2006

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

Morse’s favorite part about retirement was the sun bathing. With all the free time in the world, and a wealth of activities to pursue, all he wanted to do was lay around.

Basking in the sun was a habit he’d picked up in ‘69 when he’d had full run of Woodstock. He would pull out a blanket and take the wireless with him up to the roof and lay on his belly and let his wings out. He’d hardly missed the the podunk assignment once he’d returned to CID, but the months that had followed in the section house were near torture after he’d had a small taste of privacy and freedom. It made getting his own home a much more pressing matter, one he was very quick about, and starting a relationship with Max shortly after meant that he would never again worry about safe space. Morse wondered now, as he baked in the warm sun in the privacy of the garden decades later, if maybe all of his decisions since had just been subtle lead-ins to him having more time to just lounge about.

His former boss wouldn’t dispute it. Strange had complained for years about Morse’s tendency to take holidays in far off sun-drenched locales. He’d likely thought that Morse just wanted to get out of reach, so far away that he couldn’t be called in while on leave, but there was more to it than that. It was time that he got to spend with Max. Together. There were theaters and museums to explore - places of history and substance, art and culture - but they also went to places where they could remain anonymous, where people were more accepting and forgiving, and where they could be free with their affections and their wings. In France there were winged-only beaches. In Germany, bohemian communities where the pair of them were considered nearly prudish amongst the revelry and debauchery. They’d been to Amsterdam to see the Rijksmuseum and taken up in a small fishing cabin where Max had caught perch right from the dock which he cleaned and scaled and cooked up for them the same night. They had even gone to America, accepting an invitation from the Jakes family, and had clung to the flatbed of a pickup truck driven a hundred miles an hour down Wyoming dirt roads. They looked out at the flat endless land as far as the eye could see and clutched each other's hands and let the wind whip over their wings side by side. Strange had known some of it, but not all, and he wouldn’t realize the whole truth until many years later.

When retirement finally came, it was on the tail end of illness. Morse had been hospitalized while Lewis was off on an Inspector training, and he was discharged by the time his sergeant had returned, but the scare had been a red flag. Max made it clear that he would very much not like Morse to drop dead any time soon, and so retirement - something he and Strange had only briefly talked about with changes coming from the constabulary - became a reality. He’d rejected a big do and instead emptied his office quietly with Lewis’s help, had a drink (that he shouldn’t have had), and the next week was off with Max on an extended vacation. The intention had been some time away, some time to get his health under control, and time to adjust to not working, but it had been more difficult than he had ever expected. It had been harder to stop working than it had been to eat better and exercise a bit and cut down on the drinking, but with Max along for the ride they did their best to keep one another in check. Retirement was just the next phase, he told himself, and he wasn’t alone. When they returned home, it meant taking up hobbies, things to keep his mind occupied, activities he’d always been reluctant to pursue because of his busy work schedule. Morse took a more active role in TOSCA and had gone for some courses at the college. Despite several jokes from Lewis, he’d even pursued his bird watching, which was much easier with Max around and attracting the things like a human birdfeeder.

He had, at long last, made a life outside of murder and mayhem. Finally, Morse had learned to rest.

“Will you get up, Morse?” Max emerged from the back door of the cottage and interrupted his half-awake musings. The doctor was shower fresh, his hair damp and combed neatly back in an effort to tame it’s natural wave. His wings were out, ruffling gently over and over in the usual post-bathing ritual, and he had a bow-tie held loosely between his fingers. It was one of Morse’s favorites, a jewel toned tartan interspersed with sunny florals and winding vines of green. It was the tie that Morse thought most accurately represented his partner’s personality, one he'd gifted him unprompted many years ago, but he didn't have time to mention it aloud because the toe of Max’s polished oxford thumped against the leg of his chair purposefully. The retired doctor slid his tie around his neck and under his collar and did the preparatory arranging before he began to tie it, “She’ll be here any minute. The least you could do is put a bloody shirt on.”

“Mmmm,” Morse hummed noncommittally. He was on his belly on a lounger, a chair specifically purchased for him to loaf about on, and his wings were spread out loose and easy on either side of him. Despite his age, his white hair and his paunch, his wings looked better these days than they ever had before. It turned out that all you needed was regular maintenance and a helping hand.

Max crouched beside him like he were a murder victim and Morse cracked an eye to watch his trousers pull tight around his legs as he did so. He smirked and then shivered as he felt Max’s warm fingers trace a tingling line down the back of his sun-warm neck. He would never tire of that magical touch.

“You did agree to this lunch, you know.”

Morse hummed again as Max’s fingers brushed down his spine and in between his wings. He moved his fingertips in a gentle pressure along the wing joint and then over his vertebrae, and just as Morse felt his body tighten with familiar twinges of immobilizing pleasure, just as he let out a sigh to his weak point being exploited, Max stopped and moved away. Morse was left teased and wanting and entirely unfulfilled.

“Bastard..” He muttered gently as his wings finally folded in against him.

“Get up,” Max reiterated, “You’ve had your morning in. You’ll be crisping up like a Christmas ham soon. We’ve got lunch with Laura this afternoon and dinner later tonight. If you behave yourself, maybe there will be a bit more of that..” He waggled his hands, “..when all is said and done.”

“Bloody taskmaster you are,” Morse finally groaned as he complied and pushed himself up. He was rather brown with all his lying about in the sun, but it was just on the cusp of fall so he’d had all summer to work on his tan. He was just glad that the air was still balmy enough to keep it going, “I’m up. Look.. Up up.”

“Good, because I think I hear her car,” Max leaned close and scratched a finger lightly through Morse’s snowy chest hair before he stole a slow, warm kiss, "Shirt, love."

Almost exactly on cue, Laura Hobson’s voice sounded distantly from the vicinity of the front door, “Anybody home?!”

“It’s unlocked!” Max yelled back as he stepped away from Morse. They both heard the clunk of the front latch and Max nodded his head approvingly. He then turned back to Morse and gave him a stare over the top of his glasses. He pointed at the man's bare chest and said nothing.

“Shirt. Yes, I’m getting to it,” Morse said emphatically toward Max’s back as the doctor went back inside.

Morse bade goodbye to his garden lounging and followed with a deep sigh. He had agreed to this lunch without much coaxing but now that it was here he was reluctant to make himself sociable. As he closed the kitchen door behind him he could hear Max and Laura already at it and it wasn’t helping his desire to hole himself away at the last minute like a hermit.

Morse could see them embrace through the reflection of a parlor mirror and the pair immediately launched into their usual routine. They dined together at least twice a month and Morse suspected that Laura had taken it upon herself to check up on them since Morse’s illness and Max’s heart attack some years before.

“How’re things?” Max asked.

“This week? A few old blokes dropped dead. Natural causes.”

“Down with the patriarchy,” Max smiled and it got a laugh out of Laura.

Morse made a face.

“Anything suspicious?”

“No. A coronary, a stroke and a chronic alcoholic who had done me the courtesy of pickling his organs well in advance. Just the sort of irresponsibility I expect of men of a certain age,” Laura gave Morse a quick and pointed wink as she came into view, “Hello Morse. Did I interrupt your sunbathing?”

“You did, actually,” Morse said with a point. He straightened from his eavesdropping and drummed his fingers on the back of a dining chair.

“Well,” She leaned in to give him a cheek kiss which he reluctantly accepted, and pushed a gift bag into his hand, “A little bird told me it was your birthday.”

“A great big bird you mean,” Morse could feel himself warming. His eyes darted over Laura to pin Max with a stare but the doctor was unaffected aside from a slight lift of his eyebrows. Morse gave Laura’s hand a gentle squeeze, “Thank you. You didn’t need to.”

“No. I didn’t,” Laura patted him on the arm. She was immune to most of his charms but with that came an immunity to his bad habits as well. She didn’t seem to give a hoot that he hadn’t a shirt on yet, “But I wanted to. You don’t have to open it now either. It was honestly something I would have picked up for you regardless.”

“Thank you,” Morse said again. He could see the lid of something, a small bottle of his favorite mid-grade scotch whiskey, and then beside it a rectangular shape wrapped in simple matte paper that looked a bit like a book. He could have left it alone, but the curiosity was too much. He pulled out the package, unwrapped it and took a gander at the cover.

“Criminal Detection In The Victorian Period,” Laura supplied helpfully.

Morse had heard of the book, and even better, had heard of the writer, “He’s coming for a lecture later this month, isn’t he? This… Dr. Van Buren.”

“ _She_ is,” Laura smiled, “Millicent Van Buren. In fact, I was thinking that we could both read it, tear it to shreds _as we do_ , and go to see her speak. Give her a bit of our mind about the failings of the Victorian process.”

“There’s supposed to be a whole exhibit on Victorian crime, isn’t there?” Max had found a vest of Morse’s in the clean washing and offered it to him.

“Yes, Strange sent me an article about it,” Morse accepted his vest in one hand but was still reading the back cover of the book in the other. He finally looked up, “Thank you, Laura. Really.”

“Happy Birthday,” She repeated, “I’m very glad you are here for it. _Really._ ”

He didn't like to think too hard on the fact that he may not have made this birthday or that Max may not have either. Without one another he wasn't sure either of them could have gone on this long. Self-care had been an afterthought for entirely too long. They were hardly ancient, but it felt like ages before he’d truly caught on to the importance and it certainly took too many health scares for both of them.

“I should probably, ah...” Morse gestured to his chest and the vest in his hand and resumed his meandering around the first floor looking for clothes.

Max and Laura, in turn, resumed their catching up. She invaded the refrigerator to make sure they were eating half-way decent food and Max bickered with her gently over the remains of a chocolate cake he’d baked a couple of days before. Max and Morse both were self indulgent lushes and it was very hard to fully cut out the drinking and eating despite their health scares. They were at least working on the _excess_ bit.

Part of this effort of change was making themselves more accessible. Max had regular lunches with old colleagues and friends, and Morse was more active and present in the lives of his sister and her family. Their social circles didn’t much overlap in most cases, both of them still craved their independent endeavours, but today’s birthday meant a lunch with Laura and a slew of well wishing phone calls and a dinner later with Strange and his wife. Lewis had rung him that morning on his way in to work, but things had gotten strained between them after his retirement and Mrs. Lewis's death. Morse got the feeling his old sergeant held something against him, his absence perhaps, his inability to solve her case maybe, and then he'd gone off to the Virgin Islands and put as much distance has could between himself and all things Oxford. Morse was pleased that Lewis was back, was glad to hear from him, but something still felt off. Perhaps they just didn't know each other that well anymore.

Morse left the pair of doctors to the kitchen and moved through to the sitting room when Laura planted herself on a stool. She talked about some woman in hospital administration who had just retired, and another long retired colleague who had recently passed away. Why was it that at a certain age conversations always looped back around to who was sick and who had died?

Standing between the television and sofa, Morse still hadn’t found a shirt. He was sure he’d left one laying on a piece of furniture but Max was a chronic tidier...

“Morse!” Laura drifted back around the doorframe, eating a tiny bunch of grapes she’d plucked out of the refrigerator, “Have you seen Robbie since he’s been back?”

“He called,” Morse glanced around again, trying to look like he was actively on The Case of the Missing Shirt when Max appeared behind Laura again with narrowed eyes.

“He’s got a new sergeant. Did he tell you that?”

“Oh?” Morse blinked. Good for Lewis. He was never much good with sergeants, “They get on?”

“Oh, rather well I think,” Laura smiled, “They plucked Robbie right off the plane from BVI and straight to a murder case and the pair of them were thick as thieves almost immediately. Sergeant James Hathaway. Poached him right out from under DI Knox once all was said and done.”

“Well, Knox was always a bit shit," Morse murmured. Something about the last name Hathaway struck him as memorable. He was usually very good with names. Where had he heard that one before?

Morse and Lewis had always worked well together, in his opinion, because they were opposites. Morse had the age and experience, the insight, he could do the mental acrobatics and Lewis was upright and moral and good and hardworking. He was determined and saw everything through. For all their good work there was always friction, always annoyances, and he supposed he’d passed that on to him when he’d gone. Lewis had never kept a sergeant very long. He supposed this new lad must have been more amenable - just like Lewis had been at that age. A good lad with a young family and a pretty wife and a couple of _bairns_. He must be someone that Lewis could relate to.

“Bosom buddies, hm? Must be just like Lewis was when he was a sergeant.”

“Actually,” Laura smirked, “He’s a fast track. Cambridge. Rather dishy. I’d say he leans more to the Morse end of the detective spectrum than the Lewis.”

Max’s eyes got wide and he huffed sympathetically, “Sounds awful.”

Morse ‘tsked’ at Max across the room.

Max waved a finger at him in the air, gesturing at all of him, “Only men in shirts get to cluck their tongues at me, _Chief Inspector_.”

“I’m working on it, _Doctor_."

Laura popped the last grape into her mouth, ignored the bickering, and wandered back into the kitchen to drop the stem in the bin, “I think you’d like him, for what it’s worth.”

“Upstairs,” Max said softly to Morse. It looked like the only way the shirt conundrum was going to be solved, was if Max took charge. He moved across the parlor and turned Morse's bare shoulders towards the stairs. He was, very literally, herding him.

“Laura, we’ll be down in a moment and then we can leave,” Max called to her.

“You aren’t going up to hide your wings are you?” As they moved up the stairs and rounded the landing her voice grew closer, “You know no one cares much anymore. Especially not about a pair of pensioners. You know.. It’s.. cute or something. Old people in love." She teased, "Lovebirds."

Morse actually groaned aloud in despair, "It may finally be time to die, Max."

Cute. _Christ_.

They made their way up the stairs, past the bathroom door still smelling of Max's shower, past the hall cupboard with a few blazers hung on the back, and on to their bedroom where Morse wandered to their cramped shared closet - his half not much more than a pile while Max's looked very neatly organized. When he’d finally decided to sell his house and move in with Max, he’d been reluctant to lose his freedom but also reluctant to lose the enchantment that he had with Max’s cottage. He had been afraid that he’d get used to it. That he’d get steeped in it, that his things would, in that the lovely warm tingle in the air - that wonderful magical blanket of safety and comfort - that the lovely feeling of it would simply wear off.

But it hadn’t.

He hadn’t gotten any better at magic, as time passed, but Max had gotten more generous with it. He would never cheat in the garden, but he did around the house and even now he swiped a hand through Morse’s clothes pile with a finger form and parted it like the red sea to produce a bold blue shirt, another motion and the wrinkles were ironed out. Morse realized he was still holding the book Laura had given him and he set it down by the bedside, right on top of _Five Centuries of Verse_ , the newest copy of _A Practical Guide to Winged Peoples - Revised Edition by Dr. M. de Bryn_ , and another with no title, a faded blue cover and the remains of a gilded edge. It was still there, always there, two books down on his bedside.

"The sentiment is appreciated, Laura,” Max said loudly towards the bedroom door, “but please leave us to our old fashioned sensibilities. It's much easier this way. ”

“That sounds like an excuse,” Laura’s voice carried.

"Soon you’ll be telling us to answer our mobiles or get a civil partnership,” Max barked with some amusement.

Morse muttered low in disbelief, "What in the hell are you talking about? We got one as soon as we could. You said you didn’t-”

Laura sounded thoughtful, “Well it’s a thought. If something were to happen, Max-”

Max barked a laugh and ended the conversation with the closing of the bedroom door. He smoothed his hands again over the shirt, “The easiest way to deal with these difficult types, Morse, is to pretend you are much too old and much too stubborn to change. _Oh woe is me. I’m so old. Times are changing. It’s so very scary._ ”

Max held out the shirt by the shoulders, clean and straight, and smiled cooly, “I’m a bit of an expert with difficult sods. Now, put this on. You look so very handsome in blue.”

Morse pursed his lips, “That senile business doesn’t work on me.”

"Because you’d never believe me,” He stepped closer, put the shirt in Morse’s hands, and pressed a kiss to the side of his face, “But you respond amazingly well to flattery.”

Morse let out a short huff of a laugh and shook his head.

“Go on,” Max gestured, “Or do I have to dress you as well?”

Morse may have been easily flattered, but he wasn’t without his tricks with Max. He gave his partner a look through his lashes as he thumbed towards his back, “Well... “

“You are hopeless,” Max snorted.

“Clearly,” Morse presented his wings to Max and gave him a look over his shoulder, “But how else am I to appreciate your many talents?"

Max stepped close and pressed a hand between Morse’s wings. Morse felt that familiar energy tugging his own, magic brushing against his, mingling and mixing, manipulating with no coercion, and that tingle of connection, that spark and tug, warm and fulfilling. It had never ever gotten old. Never ever had the revelation of it worn off. As the wings disappeared, Max slid an arm around Morse’s bare waist and he pressed a kiss to a naked shoulder.

As Max’s lips met his warm skin Morse tilted his head against him, “Thank you.”

“Not immune to flattery myself it seems,” Max released him, moving in front to kiss the corner of his mouth and finally step away. With a quick gesture his own wings were gone and when they finally rejoined Laura downstairs it was as retired detective and doctor. No different than they had looked for years and years to family and friends. Max in his bowtie and tweed and Morse in his blues. Older - probably not _much_ wiser - but nominally more healthy.

Laura was waiting at the bottom of the stairs with her hands in the back pockets of her jeans as if she were waiting for her prom dates. Her brow was furrowed in thought and when they’d got about half way down the staircase she finally spoke her mind, “Have you ever told Robbie? About the wings I mean.”

Morse felt his throat run dry.

“You haven’t have you? Neither of you?”

“Well,” Morse cleared his throat lightly, “It was hardly relevant. We never even had a winged case.”

“My god!” Laura gaped, “You were partners for years!!”

“Max didn’t tell me about his wings years!” Morse defended.

Max, who had hoped to stay out of it, finally huffed, “And it took you 25 years to move in with me. Who’s really counting?”

“You two are unbelievable,” She shook her head. Laura stepped away from the stairs finally, and into the front hall and the towards the front door beyond, "You should tell him. Or show him."

"I'm sure we'll get around to it," Morse said offhandedly. At the bottom of the stairs, both men went instinctively for their car keys. A small battle ensued, one involving snatching keys back and forth.

“You drive too fast and your car doesn’t even have electrics.”

“You drive like a bloody stunt driver!”

“I’m driving!” Laura inhaled deeply in exasperation and walked out the door, “Honestly, 70 going on 7.”

Morse, scandalized, nearly chirped, “I’m not 70 yet..”

Max, without a beat, gave him a squeeze, “I think you’ve been 70 since you were born, my dear.”

Morse stepped outside and even on the front steps could feel the difference in the air, like a breeze even when there was none, the magic staying contained in the house and it was like moving out from under a blanket into the chill of the real world.

Once again, he thought he should have just stayed home.

But then Max joined him after locking up and his arm slid through Morse's and their hands found one another and tangled and Morse got shivers again, lovely hot tingles, that ever present warmth and safety. That connection.

"C'mon, birthday boy," Max smirked and Morse shook his head and followed. He was magnetically drawn, pulled along by the man’s presence, pure and simple, as he always had been and always would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is probably entirely unnecessary but I will never pass up the opportunity to write an old man epilogue.
> 
> TBH they wouldn't even be very old in 2006. Late 60's for morse (68 or so?). Also The Victorian crime book and the author are both featured in the Inspector Morse episode The Wench is Dead. 
> 
> This has been crafted (somewhat) carefully to mesh with pri's existing Lewis wing lore... in that Robbie has very little knowledge of wings, winged peoples, etc. Yes, Morse still keeps his secrets. Some people don't change too much..
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, anyway! Let me know what you think, if you have questions and as always hmu on [tumblr](http://bryndeavour.tumblr.com).
> 
> What's next for old man morse and max in their retirement?? MAYBE A CASE?? I'll think about it ;D


End file.
